Tinicum & Eastwick: Environmental Justice and Racial Injustice in Southwest Philadelphia

When plans to overhaul Southwest Philadelphia in the 1950s scheduled both the integrated neighborhood of Eastwick and the ecologically valuable Tinicum marshes to be razed, two grassroots movements took up the cause—battling eminent domain in the name of environmental conservation and economic injustice.

In the 1950s, city planners eager to change the face of Philadelphia had designs on the city’s southwest. They planned to raze the integrated neighborhood of Eastwick and level the ecologica...