33: The TRUTH behind Central Park, Lake Lanier and Dodger Stadium
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

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This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Hi friends, I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to the Library of Dark History. Now this is a safe space for all the curious cats out there who would think to themselves, hey, is history really as boring as it seemed in school? Oh nay nay. This is where we can learn together about the dark, mysterious, dramatic stories our teachers never told us about. So...

I hope you're having a great day because this story is dark. I mean, all the stories are dark, but like this one's, they're all dark. Okay, great. Hi. So how many times have we sat here on this very day and talked about how colonizers swept across the United States and erased Native communities? I mean, it's a lot. It's a very common theme here. But what if I told you it wasn't just the Native communities and that it didn't stop after the 1800s?

Well, hopefully that's not surprising to you because I've actually talked about that too. So remember when we talked about Rosewood? It was like the very second episode where an entire town drove out all of the black residents after a white woman lied about being assaulted.

And over on my Murder Mystery Makeup, maybe you watched the video I did about the Tulsa Race Massacre. It was about essentially angry white folks who decided to take revenge on a black community and burn it to the ground. And it was like a black Wall Street. I mean, super successful. Money was being made. And people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, burned it to the ground.

Because they didn't really want to see any Black Americans making more money than them or just being unsuccessful, having their own thing. There are stories like this in communities all across the country that have literally been erased. And not only have they been completely erased, but they've also been replaced. So today we're going to talk about three of these communities, Oscarville, Seneca Village, and Chavez Ravine. But today you know them as Local Lake, a public park, and a baseball stadium.

The crowd goes wild. Just kidding. Not funny. Okay, so now I'm going to open up my book to chapter what? What chapter is this? Oh, what is that? Okay, found it.

So our first story begins in New York City in the early 1800s, the Big Apple. But back then, farms dominated a ton of the landscape. And then soon, huge churches and universities were popping up and new ideas were being shared. It was starting to fill with hustle and bustle, and more importantly, it was starting to fill with people.

And lots of them. At the time, New York actually had one of the biggest populations of formerly enslaved people in the nation. And some of this freed population started buying property and land in an area of the city that was known as Five Points. Because Five Points was a primarily black neighborhood, it was neglected by the city. Entire families lived in run-down houses, old horse stables, and abandoned industrial buildings.

Sometimes they would convert these buildings into really uncomfortable one-room apartments and multiple families would share and live in them. And Five Points started getting a really bad reputation as a place full of poverty, crime, and disease. Charles Dickens even wrote a book about how rough it was living in this neighborhood. Now, you might say, if it was so bad, why didn't they just move? And I mean, come on, it wasn't that easy.

Because, you see, although they had bought the land in Five Points, a lot of people living in these converted buildings were living there illegally. That is because most black people were not allowed to buy or rent property in the state of New York. But then, in 1825, a pair of white landowners decided to start selling some farmland they owned near Five Points to anybody who wanted it, regardless of the color of their skin.

Now, one of the men who jumped at this opportunity was a man named Andrew Williams. Andrew leaped at the chance and bought himself a few plots of land for the low, low price of $125, which today is still only $3,200. $3,200.

Now, Andrew was a formerly enslaved man who had become a shoeshiner, and he saw all this land as a way to make his place in the world. And he wasn't the only one, because as soon as word spread around Five Points that there was like a ton of land nearby being sold for dirt cheap, people were scooping it up.

As more and more people started buying up the land, the community grew and started to become known as Seneca Village. Just 30 years later in 1855, Seneca Village was a full-blown community. I mean, there was a school, a church, cemeteries, and even a community garden. I mean, it was amazing. It was a 300-person Black community, and they lived almost completely outside of any white influence.

Seneca Village was also considered the most politically active black community in the country. The entire country. Now this was because during the 1800s, in an effort to stop black men from voting, there was a law that said you had to own at least $250 in property. But in Seneca Village, half of the people living there owned their own homes and that land valued over the $250 limit.

And this resulted in 90% of Black voters in the entire state of New York were residents of Seneca Village. That's pretty badass. But while Seneca Village was thriving, the rest of New York was not.

You see, in nearby Manhattan, the area was becoming extremely overcrowded. The entire place had become unsanitary, full of diseases, trash, and even animals just running down the street. So instead of putting money towards fixing the actual issues they were facing, there is like a proposal for a huge park in the upper part of Manhattan. Everybody loved this idea of a park. Yes, a park. Great. We love a park.

But there was one teeny tiny problem. Now, in order to build this park, houses had to be torn down. And to make it worse, the houses in question just so happened to belong to wealthy white landowners. These homeowners were like, what? No, no, we are not building a park here. Go build that somewhere else.

So they filed an injunction with the court to stop the city from tearing down their houses. But the city still really wanted their big fancy park. And they realized they're going to have to like kick someone out of their home in order to achieve this goal of theirs. So they start looking around to see who would be the easiest to kick out. And surprise, surprise, they pick the nearby thriving black community of Seneca Village to be the new location. But let's pause for an ad break really quick. Hold on.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory. How do you clear out a community of thriving, happy people?

The city's plan was just to offer the citizens of Seneca Village some money to cough over their land and their homes. And as if this wasn't insulting enough, the money that they offered was not even like what the land slash property was worth. So the people of Seneca Village obviously did not want to accept the deal.

And Andrew, remember him from earlier, so he remembers what the rich white people did when they didn't want to give up their homes. And he convinces the Seneca residents to file a court injunction. Andrew and the Seneca village community filed the injunction to save their homes. It worked for the white people, so it should work for them, right? They have the same case, same exact situation as going on.

But unfortunately, as we know, it just – it didn't work the same for Seneca Village citizens. And I think it's a safe assumption to make because racism –

is happening here in this story. So the judge ignores the people of Seneca for two full years. And when the judge finally gets around to their case, he says what the city was doing was perfectly legal. In fact, the judge says that the city technically doesn't have to pay the citizens at all to

and that the city can just take their homes, their land, goodbye, see ya. And if they did so, the city wouldn't be breaking a single law. And this law the city used to basically steal this land was something called eminent domain. Eminent domain means that the government has the right to just take any land or property without asking, even if it's private property.

They just had to say that the property they're stealing will be for public use. In this case, it's going to be a park. Hi. The logic behind this law is that a few people will suffer, but in the long run, everyone's going to benefit. So eminent domain may sound boring, but it's also a bit of a loophole for governments to basically do whatever they want with someone's home or their land.

or in this case, of Seneca Village, an entire community. And despite pushback from Seneca residents, in 1857, the city took over the land using eminent domain. Once they had the land, the city tore everything down and built a big-ass park. That's so lame. A park? Yeah, a park. Now, if you haven't guessed it yet, the park is a super famous park that you've probably heard of. Baby, it's Central Park.

In New York, Central Park, iconic. Yeah. The setting of basically every like 90s rom-com with its autumn leaves and long twisting paths, a lot of people get murdered there too. Yeah. Central Park is a United States landmark. Yeah.

People come from all over the world just to see it, but we barely talk about the land that it was built on. You know, how they snatched the land away from people who already were thriving and had a whole community and whatnot. I think it's safe to say most people don't want to talk about what happened to the Black community of Seneca Village back in 1857. Lives were uprooted and any hope of generational wealth as a result of property ownership was destroyed.

not to mention the erasure of a safe haven for black residents of 1800s in New York. But the city didn't care about that. I mean, they wanted a park, point blank period. They're like, we wanna park. We don't have a park, you guys. We don't have places to have picnics. Now don't get me wrong, eminent domain is super fucked up and it is often used to target communities of color.

but it's technically legal within our system. And this is a good example of what we as a society call institutional racism. But when institutional racism doesn't work, what do the powers that be do to get what they want? Well, they turn to uglier methods,

And there's no better example of that than the story of Oscarville, Georgia. Oh yes, we have another example, bitch. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

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Your cash back really adds up. All right, so now we're in the year 1912, and we're in a small town of Oscarville, Georgia, with a population that was 90% white and 10% black. Oscarville was located in Forsyth County, where most of the black population had been free since the end of the Civil War and typically worked in the nearby cotton field.

Most of them made a decent enough living to be able to build a community for themselves in the area. Like Seneca Village, they managed to build some churches and schools and even a few businesses like hardware stores. And also like Seneca Village, Oscarville also provided a bit of a safe haven for the black community. But even though Oscarville was a safe haven, this was still...

the Jim Crow South. Not to mention there was like tension in town because just six years earlier, a series of riots in nearby Atlanta ended with white mobs killing dozens of black people. So there's like always this feeling going on in the air that something bad was about to happen. And then in September of 1912, that something bad did indeed happen. On September 5th, 1912 to be exact,

A white woman named Ellen Grice wakes up in bed in her small house just outside of Oscarville. She yawns, stretches her arms and legs, and when she turns around, she sees a man lying next to her in bed. It's a black man.

She screams at the top of her lungs and she jumps out of the window to escape. Ellen goes into town. She starts telling everyone that she had been assaulted. And then everyone goes into panic trying to find like who was this man that did this to her? Now, Ellen was well known in town because she was the wife of a big wig farm owner.

So this was like a really big deal and rumors are just flying around town. But it seemed that most people believe that Ellen Grice was sexually assaulted and that her attacker had somehow got away. So the police start arresting literally every black man they can find.

And then huge mobs surround the courthouse where all the men are being held demanding justice for what happened to Ellen. One of the people witnessing what was happening at the courthouse was Grant Smith. Grant was a local black preacher and he could tell that tensions were mounting. So he tried to reason with the crowd. He tried. And Grant was saying that everybody needs to like just calm down and consider that, I don't know, maybe there's holes in Ellen's story here. Okay.

He was basically saying, hey, maybe Ellen wasn't attacked, which is very brave. There were rumors going around that she was having an affair and she didn't want to get caught. So she ended up changing her story. Now, as you can imagine, this didn't go over very well with the already very angry crowd of white people.

And immediately, they go after Grant. They beat and they whipped him to a pulp. And then they put a rope around Grant's neck and they start to pull him up. At this point, the sheriffs decide that this is just a step too far. I mean, the whipping was fine. But, you know, the rope, not cool.

So the sheriffs decide to cut him down to take him into the courthouse for protection. But at this point, it was too late to stop the crowd, and it had turned into just a full-blown angry mob. It's so annoying. It's like they're totally—it's like, why are you mad at the wrong person? This person has nothing to do with anything. I just—

I just, we don't get it. Why? Why? This mom got so intense and violent that the mayor had to call in the military and issue a curfew for black residents. Not the white ones. No, they're fine. White people can go on raging and like do whatever they want. But black people, they needed to go home. They are dangerous.

Eventually, they had to declare martial law where the military takes charge until things can get back under control. Okay, so we've got martial law, an angry mob, and a preacher beaten to a pulp, and shit hasn't even hit the fan yet. Just four days after the incident with Ellen, on September 9th, an 18-year-old white woman by the name of May Crow, she's attacked.

Now, the last time anyone had talked to May, she was going for a walk in the woods. For the next day, she was found unconscious under a tree.

Mae then slipped into a coma for two weeks and then eventually died. Once again, the community worked itself into an outrage. And once again, another innocent white woman had been attacked, but this time she died. Now, there was no evidence that Mae Crow had been raped, but the mob didn't care because they were all starting rumors and saying that she was. And everybody decided to just go with it.

So rumors are starting to swirl around all over the county that there was a series of black men who were out trying to rape white women. Again, no evidence of this. Okay. No proof. Nothing. Didn't matter.

The white people of the community were convinced and they just wanted justice. They wanted a reason to rage. So the white members of the community of Forsyth County were out for blood because of this quote unquote crime spree of black men attacking white women. Now, again, if you've been paying attention, there's no real evidence to support this statement.

But that didn't matter, and they decided to recruit the help of a group called the Knight Riders, which sounds like a cool name. But the Knight Riders were not cool at all, okay? They were basically a rebrand of the KKK. You see, right after the Civil War, the Klan had gone out of favor and hadn't been an official organization since 1871. But just because the organization wasn't a thing, it doesn't mean that people stopped being racist and, like, getting together. Right?

So that's how the Knight Riders came to be. Technically a new group, same people, same goals, rebrand. So historians say that the Knight Riders considered themselves a vigilante group who joined forces to destroy what they called Black Insurrection.

But they also protected the white community at all costs. So they'd go around on horseback, kidnap black men and women, tie them up, then drop them off at jailhouses. So the Knight Riders are patrolling the area looking for people that they believed killed Mae Crowe.

One of the people they targeted was a man named Rob Edwards. Rob had been put in a jail cell for his protection since it was known that the Knight Riders were looking for him. They were coming for him.

But that didn't stop the Knight Riders. They rallied thousands of angry white people and the mob broke into the cell and murdered Rob. Oh my God. Afterwards, they dragged his body through the street and hung him from a telephone wire. Jesus Lord. And what was the proof they had on Rob?

Crickets, exactly. Crickets, nothing. Okay. The very next day, there was a couple of black teenagers who were arrested on suspicion of assaulting Ellen Grice, and they were put on trial. It's almost as if these boys were being offered up to stop the mob from doing angry mob shit. They just needed a sacrificial lamb in a way. And to make matters worse, the trial finished in just a few hours. It wasn't like a real trial.

Trials usually take weeks, sometimes months for something like this. And despite having freaking no evidence, both teens were convicted and sentenced to death by public execution. But at this time, public execution was – it wasn't even legal in the state of Georgia. But again, that didn't matter. OK? The mob still wanted blood. OK?

And they needed some kind of performance and they got it when the boys were executed later that week. Fucking brutal. This is awful. Unfortunately, this did not satisfy the mob. At least one historian says that the people of Forsyth County claimed that they were afraid of a black rebellion, which was – it wasn't even a thing, okay? Okay.

But the white people of Oscarville, they just didn't care. And in an attempt to get rid of this fake rebellion that they made up in their minds, they decided that they should just start burning down the homes and the churches of the black community because that would prevent violence.

Whatever the fuck they think is going to happen. Buildings that were not burnt down would be targeted by random gunfire. Fake notices full of racial slurs were printed saying that the black residents of Oscarville had 24 hours to get out. These notices actually said that the black residents had to leave by law, even though...

This was illegal. This was not true. Whether they believed that these notices were real or not, I mean, they could tell that this situation was no longer safe for them. And in just two months, almost the entire Black population of Forsyth County had completely left. This included all of the town of Oscarsville. You happy? You got what you want, you shitheads. Not the white people. The white people.

In 1910, there were over 1,000 black residents in the county. Just 10 years later, there were only nine. And they all worked for one farmer. So for a long time, Oscarville was nearly a ghost town and would stay that way for almost 30 years. The original citizens of Oscarville never returned.

There were still a couple people living in the ghost town of Oscarville, but then the Georgia government used eminent domain to force them out. And why did the Georgia government force these people out, you may be wondering, asking? Was it so they could rebuild this town and give it back to the original citizens? Of course not. You know? No. I wish. No. They did so so they could take it and turn it into a lake.

Yay! So what was once Oscarville is now submerged under the waters of Lake Lanier. Oh, don't a lot of people get murdered there too? Oh my god, so we got, okay, okay. Now, if you live in Georgia, you've probably heard of Lake Lanier.

You may have even been there for a swim or on a boat. But not many people actually know that the lake is actually a flooded town that entire black community was forced out of. Now, for the past few years, Georgia has experienced crazy weather. And sometimes the drought will be so bad that the lake's water gets incredibly low.

And they say when this happens, old parts of Oscarville will reappear, such as the remains of old burned up homes and shops or even like old street signs. Now, the taking of Oscarville was incredibly violent, but no one tried to stop it.

And Georgia even sealed the deal legally by enacting eminent domain. And instead of apologizing and maybe, I don't know, returning the town, they flooded it. Out of sight, out of mind. That should be America's slogan. Out of sight, out of mind, baby. I mean, what happened in Oscarville and what happened in Seneca Village, I think we can all agree here, was extremely fucked up.

But those places weren't the only places it happened. I mean, it's happened a shit ton. This is only a small little fraction. And also, it wasn't just black communities that were affected, but any community of color. And the reasons they were erasing the communities become grosser and grosser. Plus, what they started replacing these communities with became more and more stupid.

Because if you think a park and a lake are dumb enough reasons to kick out a whole town, wait till I tell you about the town that got replaced by a baseball stadium. Yeah, baseball. Oh, but I have to pause for an ad break. BRB.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year. So you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory. Now we're going to head over to Los Angeles.

That's where our next story is taking place. Now, way back in the mid 1800s, when Los Angeles was still part of Mexico, there was a huge canyon. I'm talking no homes, no businesses, just sweet, beautiful nature. It was purchased by a local politician named Julian Chavez in 1844 and became known as Chavez Ravine.

Just a couple years later, Los Angeles becomes occupied by the United States, and also Julian Chavez dies. The two things are not related, but they happened around the same time, okay?

So unfortunately, we don't know a lot about Julian Chavez, but his dream was to create a strong Mexican-American community in the heart of Los Angeles. And although Julian wasn't around to see it, his dream started to become true. And by the time Los Angeles and the state of California were officially part of the United States, Mexican-American families began to move and build houses. And soon there were schools, churches, farms popping up all in the ravine.

And multiple communities started to form. These communities were known as Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop. Now, these were very tight-knit communities. I mean, the kind of place where people would just leave their doors unlocked, knew everyone's name.

Love that. Now, the communities were a little bit more rugged. The houses were handmade, wooden structures with no indoor plumbing or electricity. They built a community with whatever materials they could afford. And because of this, it was really common for the press to paint the communities as an eyesore. Now, Los Angeles couldn't have this huge eyesore right in the middle of their beautiful new city.

So the city of Los Angeles weaponized the law to get rid of this community. Only this time, they didn't just use eminent domain. Oh, nay, nay. This time they used something called redlining. Okay, so stick with me on this one because the background on redlining, it's very long, it's very complex. And I think they do that on purpose. So we won't understand it. But to sum it up as easily and quickly as I can,

It was created in the 1930s to help people buy homes after the Great Depression. In order to figure out how big of a home loan people could get from banks, neighborhoods were color-coded. Green, blue, yellow, and red.

Now green, they would label like a neighborhood green. Green would be the best neighborhood. Okay, and then another neighborhood would be red. Red, you didn't want to be there. It was the worst. This is why it was called redlining. So the banks, they didn't want to lend money to people in the red areas because they assumed the people living there were poor and wouldn't be able to pay back the loans.

So if your neighborhood was red, it was considered blighted. Now that's the actual term they used. The word blighted is a farming term, meaning that the neighborhood is completely beyond repair. That's your word of the day. Try to use it in a sentence. My big toe is blighted.

Does that work? Great, okay. I did it successfully and I hope you do too. Now, because this is dark history, we know something's wrong with the system. And with redlining, the problem is these ratings were not determined in an objective way. They were filled with racist criteria that labeled white neighborhoods as desirable, AKA green, and communities of color as blighted.

Which brings us to Chavez Ravine in the 1940s. But before we get into that, we got to pause for an ad break. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Now you probably won't be surprised to learn that Chavez Ravine was considered to be blighted in the 1930s, and a few decades later in the 1950s, the city of Los Angeles took Chavez Ravine, being blighted as a green light to get rid of this eyesore.

I mean, it's red, so nobody cares about it, right? So this is where we welcome back to the scene, eminent domain. With this law, Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop would become a massive public housing project known as Elysian Park Heights.

The plan was to create government funding housing consisting of apartment buildings and two-story townhomes. They would also build new schools and playgrounds. And when the citizens sold their houses so the new community could be built, they would be allowed to be first in line to buy these new homes. So it kind of sounds like a great deal, right? Great. But it turns out that most of the people were offered just a few hundred dollars around there for their houses. Great.

And this was at the time of 1957 when similar houses would cost a few thousand dollars. Some of the people who lived in Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop ended up taking the deal. I mean, they didn't really have any other option. But most of them just decided to ignore the city's request to move out. So the developers were like, well...

What if we could give you, I don't know, less cash? The developers decide to offer the residents who weren't leaving even less money. They told them that the longer they wait, the less that they're gonna get. Well, this actually worked for the developers. By 1957, a large number of Chavez Ravine residents ended up leaving, but there were still some people who refused to leave their homes. They thought if the federal government wanted the land so bad, then I don't know, maybe they'll pay up.

But sadly, they were wrong. The government decides they're done playing around and basically forced most of the remaining residents to take even less money than they had been offered in the first place. The whole place was mostly deserted, except for 20 families who still refused to leave.

And then the housing project the government was using to force everybody out comes to a complete stop in 1958. Now for the families at the time, this must have seemed like a huge relief. They're like, oh good. Thank

Thank God. If the project is over, then we can just like go back to our house, right? But the thing was the federal government now owned most of Chavez Ravine. They had bought it all up for this housing project. But the new mayor that stopped the housing project also wasn't a fan of allowing the Chavez Ravine to be left alone. I know it's messy. So this mayor with the approval of the city council decides to buy what was Chavez Ravine from the federal government. And he decides to buy it from the city council.

And then the federal government only has one stipulation for the land. And you're probably wondering, like, well, is it to give back to the families? No, of course not. The federal government says that whatever Los Angeles does with the land, they have to use it as a public space. So parking.

parks and lakes again, right? Great. And there was one guy who saw this as a golden opportunity. Okay, so this guy, his name was Walter O'Malley. He was born October 9th in 1903. Now, Mr. Walter, he loves sports. He was like, yay, I love sports. And he purchased a baseball team in Brooklyn and he had this idea of moving it out to Los Angeles. But this team he bought, they needed a stadium.

And it just so happened that Los Angeles had a bunch of land and they had to use this land as a public space. Oh my God, wow, just like everything fell into place. And last time Wally checked, a baseball stadium was definitely a public space.

So Wally didn't have to put up much of a fight and in 1958, 352 acres were his. Wally quickly announced that his newly acquired property will be the new home of the Dodger Stadium, which is kind of interesting because the privately owned Dodger Stadium is technically considered a public space. So what do we do with that information?

We fucking rage. So now the Dodgers had a new shiny Los Angeles home. I mean, all they had to do was kick out the last remaining families, but these last few families weren't going to give up without a fight.

So in May of 1959, the police have informed the families that this is their final warning, okay? They will soon be removed by force if they don't leave because the land had been sold to this dude, Walter. But the residents continue to just ignore their warnings. This is their home. They never agreed to freaking sell it. Who's Walter? We don't care. But on May 9th, the police show up and literally pull people out of their homes, breaking down their doors right in front of them.

All sorts of aggressive. Sheriff deputies would kick down the door of many families' homes and movers would start hauling out their furniture while the family was forced out. There was one woman named Avrana who was 66 years old and was not gonna take this sitting down, okay? She started throwing rocks at the cops and she was screaming in Spanish, like, why don't the Dodgers go play in the mayor's backyard? Another woman was dragged out kicking and screaming by four deputies, okay?

They handcuffed her as she sat on the ground and watched her house get bulldozed just minutes later. Can you imagine? Getting handcuffed for what? Getting removed from your home and then you have to watch your home be bulldozed to the ground. How is this legal? Oh, eminent domain. How is that even legal?

Crews arrived and started knocking down the rest of the houses and any trace of the community that had once existed there. Within just a few months, construction officially began on Dodger Stadium. And again, all of this was completely legal. Now you know, now you know, now we know. It's all fun and games until you know. So what am I getting at with all this? Imagine if Seneca Village or Oscarville or Chavez Ravine remained in the hands of those who rightfully owned it.

Not only would their lives have been undisturbed, but the generations that came after them would have benefited from the property values increasing over time. And so when people remove this ability, it doesn't just impact the person who they took it from. This hurts the entire family lineage and the community that would have benefited from it.

So it's just like a big ass ripple effect that happens. And it's not fair. It's not right. I think it's, I mean, hello. So today, Seneca is a part that New Yorkers use to escape the city madness. Oscarville is under a lake people do beer bongs on.

And Dodger Stadium is a place where you bond with your kids over violently overpriced hot dogs. It's, yeah, it's like so crowded there. But to all the people displaced in order to create those things, it was home. They say knowledge is power, but what do we do with this knowledge? Let me know down below. Well, thank you everyone for hanging out with me today and learning something new. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions or just be like a curious cat because something always comes from something.

The more you know. Now I'd love to hear your guys' reactions to this story. Did you know any of this? I sure did not.

So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can follow along and see what you're saying. Don't forget to join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs and you can also catch my murder mystery makeup which drops on Mondays. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye. Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer. Dark history is an audio boom original.

This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kim Jacob, Stunia McNeely from 3Arts, Justin Cummins, and Claire Turner from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexi Kiven. Research provided by Ramona Kivett. Writers Jed Bookout, Michael Oberst, Joey Scavuzzo, and Kim Yageed. A big thank you to our historical consultant, Vincent Montalvo, and the organization Buried Under the Blue.

And I'm your host. Hi, Bailey Sarian. Goodbye. Save on O'Reilly Brake Parts Cleaner. Get two cans of O'Reilly Brake Parts Cleaner for just $8. Valid in-store only at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O-O-O-O'Reilly Auto Parts.