by
Sylvester Brown. Jr.
“Let us be
dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and
comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering
forces of justice.”– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
January, the annual
time of year when the nation
revisits the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Locally, dignitaries,
preachers, politicians and pundits will, no doubt, remind us that we have much
work to do in order to make Dr. King’s dream of racial equality a reality. In this,
the Trump era, many will lament the fact that the president’s 2020 proposed
budget calls for cutting $1 trillion over the
next decade from programs that help low-and moderate-income households.
For example, hundreds of thousands
of poor people will be denied food stamps under Trump’s new proposed guidelines.
It is appropriate to use this month to reflect on the racial and
economic disparities King lived and died trying to address. But wouldn’t it be
refreshing if local politicians-particularly local black politicians-
proclaimed a plan based on King’s other dream of economic emancipation,
inclusion and self-sufficiency?
Wouldn’t it be refreshing if local politicians-particularly local black politicians- proclaimed a plan based on King’s other dream of economic emancipation, inclusion and self-sufficiency?
In 1965, Dr. King advocated a $50 billion federal
program aimed at employing poor people across the nation to rebuild their own
neighborhoods and communities. He outlined the public works program in an interview with writer Alex Haley for Playboy Magazine. The “Negro rehabilitation”
program, King said, could be designed in the same breath as the GI Bill of
Rights which encouraged the same business and home loans as well as
“preferential employment” for the disadvantaged as it
did for veterans.
The physical ghetto itself, King said, must be eliminated, adding that
it “is both socially and morally suicidal to continue a pattern of deploring
effects while failing to come to grips with the causes.”
St. Louis has yet to come to grips with the causes of crime
and poverty in its disadvantaged neighborhoods. The city’s long and sordid history of segregated development
thrives in modern times. Back in 2016, Molly
Metzger, an
assistant professor at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work warned that the city, through public policies was “re-segregating” itself. Metzger, one of several scholars quoted
in a St.
Louis Magazine article, challenged city
leaders who okayed the spending millions in tax-payer dollars on incentives
designed to lure people back to the city.
The city’s long and sordid history of segregated development thrives in modern times.
After 1950,
St. Louis’ peak population shrunk from almost 900,000 to about 320,000 today.
City leaders desperately want to bring middle-class whites back to the city. In
order to do this, the city finally wants to invest and revitalize long ignored areas
in North St. Louis. For example, the ballyhooed National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) new $1.75 billion
headquarters on Jefferson and Cass avenues will serve as the linchpin for
massive neighborhood turnaround and gentrification in north St. Louis.
On his Facebook page in December, former comptroller,
Virvus Jones called out black aldermen who voted to approve $34.45 million
in tax-payer subsidies for “millionaire developers” while not appropriating
“one dime to alleviate poverty.” Some of these perks include $11.85 million in
tax-increment financing to redevelop the former Post-Dispatch building downtown
with high-end apartments. Another $14.1 million
in incentives will be allocated for apartments, retail and parking spaces near
the Forest Park-DeBaliviere MetroLink station.
Fine, I get
it. Investments in tony developments, baseball, soccer, Ferris wheels and
aquariums might increase tourism, maybe improve the city’s image and probably
attract younger, working-class people to the city. What I can’t wrap my head
around, however, is why black politicians-who sign off on these deals-can’t get
a little quid-pro-quo for the areas they supposedly represent.
On several
occasions, King spoke of the government’s willingness to dole out free land and
resources to European immigrants seeking a better life in America. If free land
was the economic remedy for whites back then, King asked, why can’t it be a tool
to combat poverty today?
What I can’t wrap my head around, however, is why black politicians-who sign off on these deals-can’t get a little quid-pro-quo for the areas they supposedly represent.
In the
month that we celebrate the iconic civil rights leader, it would be so cool to
hear black politicians outline a plan that touches on his dream of equity and sustainability.
A 2018 resilience assessment
study released by Mayor Lyda Krewson’s
office noted that the city has 25,000 vacant lots that contribute to blight, “lower
property values and declining city revenues.”
Of the
millions and millions politicians gift to fat cat developers, surely there’s a
way to set aside a couple million for a plan similar to King’s 1965 public
works proposal. Here are my thoughts: First, the city should GIVE vacant land
and abandoned buildings to residents. Second, it should provide stipends to
potential home and landowners to help rehab buildings and turn vacant lots into
food-producing land. Third, it should fund programs that teach and employ young
people to demolish and/or rehab vacant buildings.
I’m not just talking pie-in-the-sky rhetoric here. Last year, with the
help of Grace Hill Settlement House and a private landowner, my nonprofit, the
Sweet Potato Project, secured a few vacant lots in the College Hill
neighborhood. Three of those lots were gifted to a young mother who wants to
grow fresh food. I connected with the nonprofits Gateway Greening and the North
City Food Hub. Our plan and my personal goal is to raise the funds necessary to
provide this young lady and others with classes and resources to not only transform
vacant land and grow food but to take their produce to market and create marketable
food-based products that can be sold locally.
This may be a pebble-in-the-ocean approach but, if successful, it could
have wide-ranging benefits for the city and hundreds of low-income residents.
Because everybody eats, I maintain that growing, packaging and distributing
fresh food can serve as the new economic engine in North St. Louis. Instead of
forcing residents out of neighborhoods in the wave of encroaching development, this
plan can help them become vested participants, benefactors of change.
All that’s needed is vision, a new much-needed approach and the wiliness
of politicians to seriously direct tax dollars and incentives to poor residents
and blighted areas in need.
In the Playboy interview, King talked about the need to help “the Negro” develop “a sense of
stewardship.” Wouldn’t it be
uplifting to hear speeches about a local economic development plan that could
inspire vested home and landowners to serve as the eyes, ears and hearts in
troubled neighborhoods?
All that’s needed is vision, a new much-needed approach and the wiliness of politicians to seriously direct tax dollars and incentives to poor residents and blighted areas in need.
What better time than now to
align ourselves with the words of the assassinated leader who challenged us to
never, ever be satisfied…” until those who live on the outskirts of
hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security. Let us be dissatisfied
until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family will live
in a decent, sanitary home.”
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Sylvester Brown, Jr. is a former columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, founder of the Sweet Potato Project, an entrepreneurial program for urban youth and author of “When We Listen: Recognizing the Potential of Urban Youth.”
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