The Avenue was born during Reconstruction as a safe place for Black people to live and own property. As the population grew, Davis Avenue prospered through entrepreneurship and community, despite the restrictive laws of Jim Crow. 

But that economically independent community collapsed with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, urban renewal, integration of schools and families moving away. 

Those who grew up on The Avenue gave additional reasons for its decline: the closing of Brookley Field, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the opening of shopping malls, racism, crime, drugs and blight.