HSPV 701 201 Peacock Tract

Students in Professors Brent Leggs’ and Randy Mason’s studio worked in Peacock Tract on Montgomery, Alabama’s west side where highway construction purposefully destroyed huge swaths of the neighborhood in the 1960s-70s. Students explored ways of using historic preservation to advance equitable redevelopment in this historically Black neighborhood.

The scale of the project was three-fold: at a neighborhood level, as well as at the site level of Loveless School and an abandoned gas station at the intersection of Mobile and Mildred Streets. The 1965 Selma-Montgomery voting rights march connected both sites.

The project responded to the contemporary challenges of the neighborhood, addressing local stakeholders’ ideas about economic development, creative placemaking, and the preservation of the community’s stories to contribute to community repair, strengthening, and self-sufficiency.