The Road to Erasure — Why Sherman Drive Has No Ramp

Progress for Whom?

The PBS Origins video above asks a haunting question: Are highways racist? While the term "progress" is often used to describe the 46,000 miles of the Eisenhower Interstate System, the video reveals a darker reality. Between 1957 and 1977, over one million Americans were displaced by highway construction. Though Black Americans made up just 11% of the population at the time, they accounted for over 55% of those displaced [04:13].

This wasn't an accident of geography; it was "Futurama" fueled by a "categorical imperative" to clear what planners labeled as slums [05:03]. In Indianapolis, this blueprint was executed with surgical precision along the I-70 corridor.

The Sherman Drive "Pass-Through"

As the video notes, highways were often designed to go through cities rather than around them, specifically targeting neighborhoods with less political capital [05:03]. In Indianapolis, the stretch between Keystone and Emerson Avenue stands as a monument to this strategy.

While exits were provided for industrial hubs (Keystone/Rural) and growing white suburbs (Emerson), the heart of the Black residential community at Sherman Drive was denied a ramp. This created a "transit desert"—a neighborhood that bears all the environmental and physical burdens of the road [05:54] but is denied the economic access the road was built to provide.

The Final Dispossession: Martin University

The video highlights how these "gashes" through neighborhoods lead to long-term economic decay. We are seeing the final stage of this decay right now. Martin University, located on that very Sherman Drive corridor, is currently liquidating its campus for "pennies on the dollar."

Founded to serve the population displaced by the first wave of highway construction, the university has finally succumbed to the systemic isolation engineered decades ago. When we see the campus being sold at a fraction of its value, we are witnessing the "second wave" of dispossession. The highway didn't just take the homes in the 60s; it ensured the eventual failure of the institutions that tried to rebuild in its shadow.

Breaking the Pattern

As Felicia points out in the video, "infrastructure can benefit some while vastly burdening others" [11:11]. The "propaganda for progress" often masks the patterns of community destruction until it is too late to reverse them.

The story of Indiana Avenue and the current fate of Martin University remind us that a "historic designation" is often just a tombstone for a community already moved. If we want to address the inequality caused by our infrastructure, we must first recognize that the "missing ramps" and "pennies on the dollar" sales are not accidents—they are the intended results of a system designed to bypass some while serving others.

What do you think is the best way to address the generational damage caused by these "Roads to Nowhere"? Join the discussion below.

The Concrete Blade: How Progress Paved Over Black Indianapolis

 

The U.S. Interstate System is widely regarded as the finest highway network in the world. Former Federal Highway Administration Director Seppo Sillan stated that while many countries have excellent highways, the Eisenhower Interstate System is the "finest system in the world, bar none." This distinction is supported by several key factors: its unmatched safety standards, an engineering scale spanning over 46,000 miles, and an economic impact often called the "conveyor belt" of society.

But lying beneath this "progress" is an engineered system of community erasure. Driving along these interstates, one can easily be lulled into complacency, as if these superstructures have always been part of America's transportation tapestry. They are not ancient; they are relatively new. The construction dates—from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s—should serve as an alarm bell. This era was defined by the post-WWII housing surge, the rise of the suburbs, and a fierce backlash against the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. Through government-sanctioned redlining and "urban renewal," Jim Crow Apartheid was institutionalized in the very asphalt of our cities.

I-70 and Sherman Drive near Martin University (Google Maps)

Nowhere is this "invisible" personalization of policy more evident than the stretch of I-70 in Indianapolis between Keystone and Emerson Avenue.

In the 1960s, planners didn't just build a road; they drew a line of exclusion through the heart of the African American community in Martindale-Brightwood. To the west, the Keystone/Rural exit was maintained to serve industrial interests. To the east, the Emerson Avenue exit was built to funnel white suburbanites into the city. But in the center—at Sherman Drive—there is a conspicuous, haunting gap. There is no exit.

This "missing ramp" was a tactical decision. By denying highway access to the Sherman Drive corridor, planners effectively converted a thriving Black residential hub into a "pass-through zone." The neighborhood was forced to inherit all the burdens of the interstate—the noise, the pollution, and the physical bisection of their streets—without receiving any of the economic connectivity promised by "the finest system in the world."

Martin University, Indianapolis, IN (Google Maps Image)

The consequences of this isolation have reached a tragic crescendo in 2026. Martin University, an institution founded specifically to heal the wounds of this displacement, has been forced to close its doors. Starved of the state support and the physical accessibility denied to it decades ago, the campus is now being liquidated for "pennies on the dollar."

This is the second wave of dispossession. First, the homes were taken by eminent domain to build the road. Now, the community institutions that remained are being hollowed out by the systemic neglect that the road's design ensured. We must stop viewing these infrastructure gaps as engineering oversights. They are the fingerprints of a deliberate strategy to devalue Black land until it can be reclaimed for the next iteration of "progress." Until we recognize the propaganda for what it is, we will continue to drive over the history we chose to bury.