Wahouma

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Wahouma
Seal of birmingham.jpg
Birmingham neighborhoods
District(s) 2, 4, 5
Community East Lake
Population 1,028
Area N/A
President Robert Johnson (Wahouma)
Meeting site East Lake Church of God, (map)
Meeting day 1st Thursday
Website
Neighborhood map Wahouma

Wahouma is a neighborhood in the East Lake community of Birmingham. Centered around Wahouma Park, the neighborhood is bounded by 1st Avenue North to the south and I-59 to the north, from the I-20/59 split on the west to 80th Street on the east. It is encircled by the North East Lake, South East Lake, East Lake, South Woodlawn, and Woodlawn neighborhoods.

The name "Wahouma" is a variant of "Ruhama", an aboriginal name for the area first settled by white families in the 1810s. The Nathan Bedford Forrest Klan No. 60 constructed a 2-story brick meeting house on the corner of Edmonds Street and 1st Avenue North in Wahouma in 1925. In August 1928 the group held a political rally during which they lynched an effigy of New York Governor and presidential candidate Al Smith.

Wahouma Park was proposed as the site of a new high school football stadium in 1963, but the site was rejected in favor of the present Lawson Field site due to plans for I-59 to run through the site. Eventually the interstate route was pushed northward, reinforcing the division between Black neighborhoods north of the park and white communities to the south.

Most of Wahouma is in Birmingham City Council District 5, with the extreme southwestern end in District 4. School age children in the neighborhood attend Barrett Elementary School, Ossie Ware Middle School, and Woodlawn High School. The only public building in the neighborhood is the former Kennedy School.

Robert Johnson is president of the Wahouma Neighborhood Association, which meets on the 1st Thursday of each month at East Lake Church of God on 1st Avenue North.

Neighborhood presidents

Demographics

  • 2010: 1,254 (88.9% Black)
  • 2020: 1,028 (76.5% Black)

References

  • "Smith Hanged in Effigy; Alabama Klansmen Denounce Pope and Houston Steam Roller." (July 8, 1928) The New York Times