The day started by catching a city bus to the Hill District, where we met Terri Baltimore, who is a lifelong resident of the Hill District. She took us into the James F. Henry Hill Houses Center and gave us a brief overview of the Hill District, where I learned about the food desert that the community has faced for the past 30 years. She described how the community had not had a grocery store till Shop n’ Save came in a little over 10 years ago, but that it failed because it did not serve the community properly. In describing this, she talked about how they did a study a couple of years ago before a grocery store came into the town, where they gave three people $30 and told each of them to go to one of the food options in town and find meals for two days for a family of three. This study concluded that gas station was actually the healthiest place to get groceries and that was eye opening to the community leaders. Then they got funding to start a grocery store from CMU students who won a contest based on an idea they had for the Hill District. Terri said that while they might have gotten the Shop n’ Save in the end it did not meet what the community needed because they wanted a one stop shop and if they couldn’t it was not worth it because they would have to travel anyway so why add that store in as a stop. After she discussed the Shop n’ Save she told us about Salem’s which took over the Shop n’ Save but fizzled out even quicker because it had a very limited selection of products so the Hill’s residents did not find it useful because they would still have to make multiple trips. After we had our discussion we went out on a tour.

The first place we visited was the Hill District Federal Credit Union, which is one of only two black owned financial institutions in the United States and has only been managed by two people: the original owner, who was Mary Walker, and to this day Richard Witherspoon, who still manages the credit union. We got to talk with Richard, and he told us about the history of the building that the credit union is in and how he got to buy it when Mary Walker told him to for only $14,000. I also learned that the building is where the original ambulance service was started because the emergency response of the time period refused to come to the Hill because it was a black community and at that time Pittsburgh was still segregated. This service was called Freedom House and these were the most well trained ems and people from around the U.S. came to learn from them. However, this service was stopped by the city when they created there own ems service. To this day the Hill District Federal Credit Union honors this with a plaque on there building.

After that, we walked around to a few different places, where we stopped at a mural that is dedicated to the famous playwright from the Hill District, August Wilson. We learned that August Wilson’s plays were centered around the Hill District, and different places within the community were featured in his plays. Terri described how there are three different locations this summer offering his plays as part of an American Century Cycle Experience put on by the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company. After we went to the mural, we finished near what was a famous jazz place from when the Hill District was a jazz capital. While the building is not operational now it was still an interesting piece of history to see.

Some key takeaways I got from the day were that the Hill District was once thriving, but that severely changed when the Civic Arena was put in, and 8,000 people were rehomed, and the promises made back then from big businesses and the government were never met. However, the Hill District is gaining some success, primarily with smaller groups buying buildings and redoing them to better the community. The Hill District’s success is distinguished deep commitment to people, history, and justice. Business leaders have a responsibility and opportunity to align their efforts with the lived experiences and hopes of the communities they touch. When they listen, invest wisely, and act with humility, they can help neighborhoods not just survive, but truly thrive. While the Hill districts struggles may not relate to everything we do as business students we can still get go takeaways and their from their rich and diverse history. After the busy day we had a cookie cake for Ian and Sols birthday.