Welcome To Brookhill

A camera has always been a conversation piece for me. When used properly, it provides the lens trough which the artist, his subject and the viewer seek understanding. The responsibility of a photographer goes far beyond that complexity of setting - energy, much like light, is reflective and great relationships are built upon trust. Brookhill Village is a neighborhood, much like every other geographical area, made up of strong families who take care of each other, children who play and adults who work only a few miles from the heart of a booming city center. The residents became my friends. I saw their strength, resilience, and determination throughout the creative process and I'm forever grateful for the beautiful stories this amazing community allowed me to tell. - Alvin C. Jacobs Jr. 

The land where Brookhill stands has been an African-American community dating all the way back to the 1930s. The area was redlined and underdeveloped even as neighboring areas received investment opportunities and resources. Redlining cut off residents, in this and similar neighborhoods in Charlotte, from taking advantage of government secured funding and bank loans that add generational wealth and value to a neighborhood. "We identified two factors that cut across all three determinants: 1) Impact of Segregation and 2) Social Capital, the relationships and networks people have that can connect them to opportunities. These are omnipresent factors with profound impact one economic opportunity, social mobility, and general equality of life." - Executive Summary, Leading on Opportunity

"It's hard for someone that's handicapped; this is home for me. If anything were to happen to me my neighbor right there would take care of me..." - Brenda Polk, Brookhill Village Resident    

What opportunities does Charlotte hold for its next generation of residents? Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' Breaking the Link report and may other studies have indicated that breaking up concentrations of poverty in schools is one way to provide high quality education to all students. Others have identified Early Childhood education as a necessary took in helping to shift outcomes for youth in moderate-to-low income communities. This is the entryway to a neighborhood  that has raised generations of Charlotteans. It's the people that make communities rich, not the buildings. Capturing this image from ground level was a bit of a challenge but worth it. Sometimes changing your perspective can yield amazing results. - Alvin C. Jacobs Jr. 

July 19th Baby China is ready for a stroll around the neighborhood while her father Van "2Face" Anthony looks on. She's getting pretty good at it. It's great to see children play, freedom is everything as is safety which are two things her father provides. Working full time as a single dad defies most of the fatherhood narratives in the African-American community. 2Face is destroying those stereotypes. -Alvin C. Jacobs Jr. 

"My daughter was born here, I conceived her here, and we're still here. I though she would grow up here...but it don't look like it." - Van "2Face" Anthony

Mapping Inequality offers unprecedented online access to the national collection of security maps and area descriptions produced between 1935 and 1940 by one of the New Deal's most important agencies, the Home Owner's Loan Corporation or HOLC (pronounced "holk"). HOLC recruited mortgage lenders, developers, and real estate appraisers in nearly 250 cities to create maps that color-coded credit worthiness and risk on neighborhood and metropolitan levels. These maps and their accompanying documentation helped set the rulers for nearly a century of real estate practice. Mapping Inequality illustrates vividly the interplay between racism, administrative culture, economics, and the built environment Visitors can browse over 150 interactive maps and roughly 5,000 individual area descriptions to get a view of Depression-era America as developers, realtors, tax assessors, and surveyors saw it - a set of interlocking color-lines, racial groups, and environmental risks. 

Redlining - a discriminatory practice by which banks, insurance companies, etc., refuse or limit loans, mortgages, insurance, etc., within specific geographic areas, especially inner-city neighborhoods. Brookhill Village's current status can be dated back to as early as 1930. Resources have been diverted from the area for decades as a result of Redlining.