Is there a new version of “The Plan” contemporary legend circulating in Bethesda, Maryland?
© 2020 D.S. Rotenstein
The Newlands Conspiracy
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Tag Archives: urban legends
Ghosts and gangsters: 1129 Ridge Avenue, “America’s Most Haunted House”
Screen capture, 13 Creepy Pittsburgh Ghost Stories, www.pittsburghbeautiful.com
While researching organized crime in Pittsburgh I stumbled upon a colossal haunted house story. My work documenting the history of a Pittsburgh family with two generations of bootleggers and numbers racketeers inadvertently led me to 1129 Ridge Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Northside neighborhood. The family I am researching was associated with the family that owned 1129 Ridge Avenue for more than 30 years.
By the last decades of the twentieth century, stories attached to the property had earned 1129 Ridge Avenue the dubious title, “America’s most haunted house.” This post, which began as an article for a community newspaper, documents how a modest 1880s home became fodder for decades of contemporary legends. Continue reading
The kernel of truth in Trayon White’s conspiracy theories
Washingtonians lay claim to an urban legend called “The Plan.” It’s a conspiracy theory-rumor-urban legend that has circulated among the District’s African American residents for decades. Basically, it’s a belief that whites are conspiring to push blacks out of power and out of Washington. Mostly it’s a group of faceless, nameless generic whites. The conspiracy theories repeated earlier this spring by Ward 8 DC Councilmember Trayon White, however, combine elements of The Plan with even older and more widespread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jews dominating global markets, governments, and the media.
This narrative has lots of variants, all of them involving some secret cabal of white folks hellbent on whitening the Chocolate City. Like all urban legends and rumors, there are kernels of truth to be found embedded in The Plan. With Washington’s demographic shifts and gentrification over the past two decades, many Washington blacks see The Plan coming to fruition.
My first article for the new folklore blog published by New Directions in Folklore tackles Councilmember White’s comments and the context out of which they emerged. The kernel of truth in White’s conspiracy theory narratives lies in the decades during which Washington area Jewish businessmen wielded an invisible hand in discriminatory housing practices that resulted in generations of concentrated poverty, barriers to accumulating wealth, poor healthcare, and unequal educational opportunities.
The Rothschild family around which the conspiracy theories White recounted may not have been involved in Washington-area businesses but we had our own Rothschilds. Their names were Caffritz, Eig, Freenman, Kay, and Gudelsky.
Read THE PLAN, THE ROTHSCHILDS, AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
© 2018 D.S. Rotenstein
The “Decatur Plan” revisited
Did Decatur, Ga., have a plan to turn its city all white as some urban legends and local rumors suggest? In a conspiracy theory sense, it’s not likely. But, the city certainly created an atmosphere through 35 years of official policies and resident actions that instilled in many African American residents a belief that there was a “Plan” to remove them.
[1] I told my mom recently that I don’t even want to live here any more because I can’t go to work in the morning without looking around, wondering which way I should go to avoid being stopped because I’m driving her car. I can’t come home at night without wondering if I should go down DeKalb Avenue or come down [Interstate] 20 and go through Kirkwood. I don’t know which way to even make it home and I can’t be comfortable. — Decatur resident, Decatur City Commission, 21 April 2014
[2] Decatur’s a great place. I love it. I love seeing the signs saying one of the ten greatest places in the U.S. to live. It makes me feel so good. But then I know there’s something under the carpet and y’all should know it and a lot of African American people do know it.
That we feel like we’re not wanted in Decatur.– Decatur resident, Decatur City Commission, 21 April 2014
[3] They’d be every day trying to get you to sell, to get out. I guess to get out so they can just finish so it will be all white. That’s what I think it is — Decatur resident, April 2012
The Decatur Plan wasn’t hashed out in a smoke-filled backroom in the towering former Decatur Federal bank building. Instead, it is a cluster of loosely fitting motifs or rumors built on a conspiracy theory originating in Decatur’s African American kitchens, living rooms, barber shops, and churches. Continue reading