Black SC community threatened by highway project that would destroy it.

Bobbie Anne Hemingway Jordan, 82, was born and has lived in Sandridge, South Carolina her whole life. Sandridge is a small, majority-Black community that is rich in history and home to one of the first Black-owned grocery stores in South Carolina. It is a place that Jordan has many fond memories of, including spending time with her grandkids at the next-door park.

Unfortunately, this community is now in danger of being destroyed in order to build the Conway Perimeter Road. According to The Guardian, the project is expected to result in a four-lane road that connects two highways to shorten the travel time for people traveling to a nearby beach.

Jordan expressed her sadness at the prospect of having to leave the home she has known her whole life. “I thought it would be left to my children, and they could leave it to their children,” she said. In 2021, she received an appraisal for her home that would only allow her to afford a one-bedroom apartment nearby, and she had to move out in April 2023.

Rev. Cedric Blain-Spain, who has been actively campaigning against the project since 2019, said, “They are destroying everything that was given to us […], by our parents and foreparents, who just wanted to give us a community, to give us a place to call home. Our legacy, it means nothing to them.”

Not only would the project demolish six homes, it would also increase the difficulty for residents to travel within the neighborhood, such as going to grocery stores or church. Additionally, while Black residents will be affected, white, newly developed neighborhoods will be nearly untouched by the construction.

The Biden administration has made plans to fund the remediation of communities affected by highway development projects. Julian Agyeman, an urban planner and professor at Tufts University, said, “These highways were not accidents. Urban planning is the spatial toolkit of racial segregation.” The South Carolina chapter of the NAACP has filed a Title VI complaint attesting that the state and county have violated the civil rights of Black residents.

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