The "Original" Triangle District

Former residents described a diverse community that protected African Americans from larger forms of discrimination.

Chlorine Carter remembered “a beautiful area where everybody was your protector, and friends and family looked after one another.” Residents were proud to call the Triangle District their own because it was place of racial intermingling. Growing up on the Block meant playing with children of all races, Carter explained. “We lived in a mixed community, and we were friends with kids in the community.”

Hubert “Rabbit” Jones had similar experiences. As a young man, he played improv jazz for interracial audiences both inside and outside of the Triangle District. When Jones played for white bars, guests would dance to the music, even though they were not supposed to dance to music performed by Black musicians.

“Sometimes the policemen would stop them and sometimes they wouldn’t,” he mused. “And then following the dances some of the whites would come over to the Triangle District for the rest of the night, listening to and dancing to Black music.” The Triangle District was not a barrier against racism, but it dulled its dreadful impact, inviting people of every race to dance together.