Founded as a Freedman’s town, surrounded on three sides by industrial polluters, and intentionally isolated from the rest of Dallas, the Joppa neighborhood is one of the most extreme examples of the racist zoning that still drives current land use in “Big D.” From the late 1800’s forward, industries and people deemed “undesirable” by Dallas Power Brokers were redlined to the Trinity River floodplains that split the city in two - North and South. Black and Brown residents were forced to live side-by-side with slaughterhouses, lead smelters, tanneries, and cement plants.