Jacksonville Reflections - childhood neighborhood (#0077)

Less than a half mile behind my childhood home was a neighborhood that seems to have been destined to be relatively ‘iffy.’ I suspect the reason for that neighborhood’s iffy status then (and now) is because it was a blue-collar white neighborhood between what was a predominantly black stretch of housing along Old St Augustine Road and a major rail line. As for much of South Jacksonville, on this visit it looked as if what has happened over the intervening years is that the original residential divisions of wealthy white, middle class white, blue collar white, and black has morphed into a more distinct split of wealthy being still in the same area and gentrified middle class happening in the former middle-class neighborhoods that abut the wealthy sections, and then all the remaining (former middle-class white, blue-collar white, and black) morphing into a spotty mix of racially, ethnically, and economically mixed housing with block by block variations between well-maintained and rundown.

Unfortunately my main personal memory of the neighborhood was that PR (real name withheld) lived there. PR had a constant preoccupation with proving his butchness and, since I was shorter than average and often sickly, I seemed to be his prime target for harassment, being shoved around, and hit – the only reason I didn’t say ‘all my school years’ was that he dropped out in about the 10th grade. Looking back, I hope I tried to understand the sources of his need to bully, but I doubt I was good at that in the 6th grade.

The house shown here is just a random pick from houses in that neighborhood – note that the house on it’s left has been removed and the amount of shrubbery suggests that other houses have also been removed.

(Part of a photo-essay series on personal history and race with keyword FlaAla0518)