This Black History Month, Spectrum News isn't just celebrating the achievements of African Americans, we’re also delving into how history has impacted the culture. The Charlotte region’s explosive growth has brought with it the affects of gentrification. It's led to large numbers of black people being forced out of communities they have lived in for decades.

“When we moved here, it was nothing, woods were back there,” Mary Welch said about the wooded area that used to be behind her home. She lives in the historic west side community of Wesley Heights. “All of a sudden it became condos.” Welch moved in to the neighborhood in 1983 before it became the “millennial-thing” to do. Her and her late husband paid $55,000 for it but today she says it is worth “$400,000.”

Mary, like others across some of Charlotte's most historic black communities, have been hit hard by one of the consequences of economic growth. “The taxes are sky high,” Welch said. She says she has been fending off developers hoping to scoop up her property and others in her community. “They're selling them for little or nothing,” she added. She said, in its place, developers will replace it with a highly-expensive property.

Gentrification: It spurs rising home values, family incomes, and the area's educational levels. But the process can also result in cultural displacement.

“I'm really concerned about our seniors and those people of color that have been able to participate in home ownership, but now are at risk of losing those homes,” said Mecklenburg County Commissioner Mark Jerrell. He represents a district where gentrification is running rampant. “It's between east Charlotte and west Charlotte,” Jerrell said. “Those are the neighborhoods that have been adversely impacted by gentrification.”

Minorities, many of whom are on a fixed income, are often forced out of communities they have historically called home and replaced with affluent, typically white, gentrifiers, Jerrell explained. "Those neighborhoods that have been historically African American." Jerrell says Mecklenburg County's recent property tax revaluation has only accelerated the negative effects of gentrification. “Property taxes; we've seen 100 percent inflation,” Jerrell said. “Two hundred in some cases.”

“I'm not willing to concede that economic forces should have an adverse impact on our community and on our citizens, particularly those that can't afford it,” the commissioner added.

Mary Welch has stayed despite all that's developed around her. “I think that for older people who have been and who have kept the neighborhood up and have paid their taxes, and everything, I think that something should be done about that,” Welch said. “We don't want to go out there, we want to stay in the city too, and believe it or not, we used to stay in the city!”

There are community groups that are fighting the negative aspects of gentrification. Take, for instance, the West Side Community Land Trust's initiative. Through donations, it has a goal of building 50 permanently affordable homes in historically black neighborhoods along the West Boulevard corridor, allowing people like Mary Welch to stay in their beloved homes.