Interstate

Corral, O. & Muhsin, H. (Directors). Corral, O. (Executive Producer). (2025). Interstate. Video Project. 61 mins. Seventy years after the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 greenlit its construction, the interstate highway system remains a defining feature of the modern United States. By greatly expediting the movement of people and goods across long distances, the interstate system boosted the economy and connected disparate regions of the U.S. like never before. However, this prosperity and connectivity came at the expense of thriving African-American communities all over the country. Oscar Corral and Haleem Muhsin’s documentary Interstate makes this cost visible. After an introductory clip from a 1956 propaganda film, in which a (white) crowd celebrates the opening of a new highway as a marching band plays patriotic tunes, Interstate departs on a tour of the U.S. that powerfully challenges this whitewashed image of the interstate system as an uncomplicated boon. Interstate highlights five geographically dispersed neighborhoods: Overtown in Miami, Florida; Centennial Hill in Montgomery, Alabama; Tremé in New Orleans, Louisiana; Rondo in Saint Paul, Minnesota; and West Baltimore, Maryland. All five were physically, economically, and environmentally devastated when the architects of the interstate system—some of whom, like Alabama’s Sam Engelhardt, were outspoken white supremacists—chose to construct highways right through the hearts of these neighborhoods, even when alternate routes were available. In each case, local leaders, scholars, and community organizers describe what the community was like in its heyday and recount the damage it suffered. Certain themes recur throughout the five neighborhoods: destruction of homes and forced relocation, displacement of businesses and consequent destruction of generational wealth, and widespread respiratory and heart diseases. It gets a bit repetitive, but that’s the point: these tragic stories are not flukes, but rather a pattern in which the gains of the civil rights movement were deliberately offset through the destruction of black communities, wealth, and health. Although the history of the interstate system is inextricable from the context of segregation and the civil rights movement, audiences who are hazy on mid-20th-century American history should still be able to follow the documentary without issue. Key concepts such as redlining are explained by the documentary’s subjects, as are milestones such as Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery bus boycott. These explanations are skillfully supplemented with copious historical photos and footage, further bringing to life both the everyday inequities and the societal upheavals of the Jim Crow era. While Interstate provides a sobering retrospective on the hidden costs of “progress”, it also offers examples of paths to a healthier, more equitable future. The final chapter of the documentary, with its focus on solutions and community empowerment, provides a welcome antidote to the pain and injustice hitherto portrayed. Local initiatives, such as Saint Paul’s ReConnect Rondo nonprofit and inheritance fund for the descendants of displaced people, are given particular weight. Interstate makes it clear that the construction of the U.S. highway system had two objectives, both of which were achieved: to bring American transportation forward, and to set racial justice back. The interstate system is here to stay, at least for now, but the injustice doesn’t have to be. An engaging, accessible, and informative documentary, Interstate is highly recommended for general audiences, as well as for high school and college courses dealing with American history or civil rights.