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.