In March 1950, the publisher of the Wilson Daily Times, shocked by what he had witnessed on the two short blocks of Wilson’s Pettigrew Street, penned a series of articles exposing living conditions for the city’s poorest. Though Herbert D. Brauff had plenty to say about the standards of the block’s residents, he aimed a surprising salvo straight at the source of the blight — landlords. City manager Talmage Green, who guided Brauff on his tour, viewed public housing as an answer to the problem and this series arguably launched public discourse that would lead to Wilson’s construction in the 1950s and 1960s of housing projects in both African-American neighborhoods.

Wilson Daily Times, 3 March 1950.