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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Jimmie and Mary Edwards, residents of the Rosedale community for more than 60 years, sit on their front porch. The couple plans to celebrate 73 years of marriage in October and has lived in the same house since the 1950s.
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Staff photos.
Burnette pulls out a Black History of Rosedale booklet from a folder containing original historic documents about Rosedale’s history at The Lee Center.
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Staff photo.
Marlene Burnette, left, and her mother, Christine McKnight, discuss how their neighborhood has changed while sitting on their front porch in May 2021. ServisFirst Bank, a four-story bank building, backs into their property.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
The view from 27th Avenue South looking toward 18th Street South in the Rosedale community Aug. 12.
Many residents of the Rosedale neighborhood would classify it as one thing: historic.
Longtime residents of Rosedale and people who grew up there all have fond memories of spending time with family and friends, going to church and attending the local elementary and high school, which have since closed.
Anna Smith was born and raised in the neighborhood, along with her father and paternal grandmother, she said. Her grandmother moved to Rosedale as a teenager in 1926, and her father was born and raised there until the mid-1980s.
She said she remembers a thriving, residential, African American community of families. She remembers people having a tremendous sense of pride in their homes, the schools and churches, she said.
Smith moved out of Rosedale in 1980 and only goes there once a week for services at Union Missionary Baptist Church, she said, but from what she’s seen, it’s not what it used to be.
“Everyone knew everyone,” Smith said. “If they didn’t know each other, they were somehow related to each other. There has been a tremendous loss of the residential feel of the community. There are commercial sites in pockets.”
Other residents said they have noticed the loss of the community feel, as well.
When asked how he would characterize Rosedale, LeRoy Simmons, a member of Union Missionary Baptist Church, answered with only one word: “shrinking.”
Simmons didn’t grow up in Rosedale, but he went to Union every Sunday for church when he was growing up, he said.
His mother taught at Rosedale Elementary School, Rosedale High School and retired after teaching at Edgewood Elementary School, he said. His maternal grandmother lived in a shotgun house in front of Union Missionary Baptist Church, Smith said.
“From what I remember when I was growing up, Rosedale stretched all the way to where Embassy Suites is now,” Smith said. “That used to be where my uncle used to hunt. There were no commercial buildings in neighborhoods when I was growing up. Now, from [the former] Jim and Jim’s [on 27th Court South] all the way to Twin Construction, commercialism has crept into the neighborhood. I would say the neighborhood is one-fourth of what it was when I was growing up.”
He said commercial businesses have been chipping away at the Rosedale community for more than 20 years, which he thinks is good for the city of Homewood but less so for neighborhood residents.
“It’s never good to replace residential properties with commercial properties,” Simmons said. “Rosedale’s history shrinks every time they tear down another house. If they ever lost any of the churches, that would be a big chunk of change as far as history is concerned.”
Mary Edwards, another member of Union Missionary Baptist Church and resident of Rosedale for more than 80 years, said she sometimes has to stop herself from crying when she thinks about how Rosedale has gotten smaller over the years. For her, it feels like the history of a once thriving community is being washed away.
“When Rosedale was first established by a Black man, it was a heaven hill on Earth,” Edwards said. “Everybody knew everybody, everybody got along. As the days and years went on, different companies have seen what a good time we have had in Rosedale and now they want to come in, run us out and put businesses here in Rosedale. I think that’s one of the worst things anybody could do.”
Edwards was born and raised in Rosedale, as were her children, she said.
She said younger residents of Rosedale don’t understand what’s happening to the community as well as older residents do, which makes it easier for developers to move in.
“The older people have died and gone on to glory,” Edwards said. “There’s a true saying that the dead can tell what the living is doing, and I know they are crying, crying, crying.”
Councilor Melanie Geer said the city is trying to find various ways to preserve the history and maintain some form of affordable housing.
“All of these discussions are happening but there’s no easy answer to what the future looks like for Rosedale,” Geer said. “We want to maintain the residential integrity of the community and continue to enhance the community area and the surrounding commercial area for the current neighbors and future neighbors.”
Geer said she understands how residents feel about past commercialism in Rosedale, especially residents who have always lived there.
“They’ve seen their community be taken over by the city,” Geer said. “All of downtown [Homewood] used to be Rosedale, so they have seen their neighborhood shrink and shrink.”
“Our city has no intention of any more rezoning of the Neighborhood Preservation District properties, which are the residential properties in Rosedale,” Geer said. "There are definitely some questions about some of the borders. The perimeter that’s bordering 18th Street or maybe some of the businesses that are behind 18th Street. Some of those properties are in the hands of people who would like to sell and would like to sell it as commercial properties, but at this point Homewood is not interested in doing that sort of thing.”
Some bordering properties are zoned as multi-family properties and some single-family zones could possibly be rezoned as multi-family properties, but the city wants to “protect the residential integrity of Rosedale,” Geer said.
“I think the hardest part is figuring out a way to have some development in Rosedale and some revitalization that actually allows for affordable housing,” Geer said.
The YWCA and Habitat for Humanity have built single-family homes in Rosedale before but don’t anymore, Geer said. She suspects the rise in land prices contributed to that, Geer said.
“There are a lot of reasons why redevelopment is not happening,” Geer said. “Sometimes it's because the properties belong to people that won’t sell, or a property belongs to someone that wants too much for their property, or the properties might be tied up in family estates.”
Geer said the City Council can’t do much to redevelop properties if owners don’t want to. What they can control is rezoning residential properties in Rosedale, which won’t be happening, she said.
“Regardless of what they do if they overtake Rosedale, I think Rosedale’s name should be recognized and spoken of as long as people live,” Edwards said. “Don’t take Rosedale out, because in our hearts it’ll never go out.”