Good morning, everyone.
Thank you very much for joining us this morning here at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.
We are excited to be here this morning in the central area to discuss, in partnership with the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Councilmember Shama Sawant's office, the Low Income Housing Institute, and several, several other organizations and members of the community, We're excited here to discuss and unveil legislation to support the New Hope Family Housing Project and compensation for the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and others for land taken by the City of Seattle under the racist urban renewal programs of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
Today we'll hear from community supporters, faith leaders, and other organizers to discuss the legislation, which includes the New Hope Community Development Institute, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Seattle King County NAACP, El Centro de la Raza, Black Lives Matter Seattle, the United Black Christian Clergy, MLK Junior Committee members, and many, many more.
I'll be your emcee this morning.
My name is Aseya Corbray, and I am excited to announce our first speaker, Council Member Shama Sawant.
Good morning.
Thank you to members of the media and for all our community members, speakers for being here.
About a year ago, We stood here at a tax Amazon press conference right here outside New Hope Missionary Baptist Church with a dozen clergy and many community activists and socialists to demand the city establishment support the central area housing plan which had been developed by the Reverend Dr. Robert Jeffrey Sr. who is a senior pastor at this church and other area black clergy and other member faith leaders.
As a result of this advocacy and the advocacy of hundreds of community members, in fact thousands, we won the Amazon tax and a slight increase with that portion dedicated each year to housing in the central area to reverse displacement.
That was an important accomplishment, a victory for the Black Lives Matter movement.
In fact, the entire Amazon tax was a victory of the Black Lives Matter movement.
And we know that in addition to that, we need more affordable housing, not only in the central district, but citywide.
Over the years, I've spoken with many faith leaders who are eager to build affordable housing on their properties.
As part of our movement, they understand keenly both the urgency and the moral mandate for affordable housing.
That is why my office is thrilled to be part of this community effort, led by Reverend Jeffrey and the people around the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, and together with so many organizations, as Aseya mentioned, and community groups, including the New Hope Community Development Institute, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Seattle King County NAACP, El Centro de la Rosa, Black Lives Matter Seattle, United Black Clergy, MLK Junior Committee members, the Nehemiah Project, Women Rising, Clean Greens Farm and Market, Japanese American Citizens League Seattle, Bethany United Church of Christ, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, Low Income Housing Institute, and so many in Seattle's black community.
This is incredible.
You can see that this is a very, very broad coalition.
The Seattle Times recently ran an op-ed authored by Reverend Jeffrey.
In this op-ed, Reverend Jeffrey notes that in 1969, the city of Seattle forced New Hope and black homeowners in this very area to sell their land under the threat of eminent domain for the Spruce Street Mini Park.
They were forced to sell their property for $34,000, which if adjusted for inflation, would be the equivalent of $275,000 today.
This is for a property that in today's real estate market has been valued at an estimated $2 million, nearly eight times the inflation-adjusted value of its purchase price.
This was not a one-off, as we all know.
Throughout Seattle's central area in the 1960s, dozens of black families were displaced, forced to sell their houses, small businesses, and church properties under the threat of eminent domain.
The city's political establishment at the time sought the elimination of Central District's vibrant black neighborhood, which included working people and also black small businesses.
The politicians at that time set up what was called the Yesler Atlantic Urban Renewal Project.
Part of the policies established during the 50s and 60s of creating so-called model cities, a euphemistic term that spells displacement and destruction for Black communities.
Under this program, a city contractor issued a report labeling the Central District's Black community as, quote, a home to the colored, the poor, the ignorant, the unfortunate, the undesirable, the weak, the undeserving poor, end quote.
It might seem shocking to some, but this is true.
This is what happened and city officials created a ghetto for black residents outside and quote-unquote incentives for middle and upper class white families to move into the area to supposedly once again quote-unquote revitalize the area.
Our office's resolution if approved by the city council would first of all condemn these past acts of blatant racism redlining and gentrification and would commit to compensating the New Hope Church for what was taken away from them, and demand that the Office of Housing provide the $10.7 million needed to fund the New Hope Family Housing Project, an affordable housing project that would provide 90 permanently affordable homes to people making 0-60% of the area median income.
The housing would be prioritized for people and families with historic roots to the neighborhood, including those who have been displaced over the years or are currently threatened with displacement by gentrifying developers and corporate landlords.
The resolution would also commit to greatly expand the overall funds for affordable anti-displacement housing in our city by increasing the Amazon tax that our community won last year alongside the Black Lives Matter protests.
This is in fact a continuation of that incredible fight that many of the faith leaders here and Lehigh were also part of.
And these are a continuation of the solutions we need to address the consequences of the racist policies like redlining, urban renewal, weed and seed, and of course the ongoing rising housing costs faced by renters in our city.
My office will bring this resolution forward soon for the city council vote.
I do not expect it will be easy to win.
We will hear lofty words from the political establishment about equity and investment, but we'll also hear elaborate technocratic excuses about why this project cannot be funded right now, or why there simply isn't enough money to fund all of the affordable housing that working people in our community need, or why we shouldn't tax Amazon any more than we already have.
Let's recognize these excuses as political obstacles.
If Jeff Bezos has the billions to launch himself into space, then he surely has the money to pay for more affordable housing right here on earth.
What is lacking in City Hall, and what has always lacked, is political will And the way we transform that is by all of us out here on the streets, in our workplaces, building a movement to fight for and win affordable housing.
And the fight for new hope is part of that larger fight.
That is why it is so exciting to be back here with so many of our faith leaders and our community members and with Lehigh.
Today we take that fight one step forward.
And we want to make sure that we recognize what happened in the past as a stunning outrage and egregious theft of black resources and legalized redlining and gentrification against the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and black community members.
Thank you again for the time of the media.
I will end by inviting everybody for our rally for reparations.
unity and affordable housing on saturday july 24th at noon over at spruce street community spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce spruce sp
Thank you very much, Councilmember Sawant.
Next, I am very excited to introduce the Senior Pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Reverend Dr. Robert Jeffrey.
Thank you.
Well, in 1969, this church was done a great disservice.
because of prejudiced notions about the community and aggressive land grabbing policies adopted by the city council.
Valuable land was taken from the church and from other citizens on this block and in this community.
What we want today is to begin to begin the process of quantifying the damage done first to new hope and then the surrounding community as well.
We know that the city is in the process of giving out random gifts, but there has been no quantification of the damage done to this community.
At some point, we need to understand the severe loss to the businesses, the people that used to live here and that some still live here.
According to the prevailing evidence, Seattle needs to take note of the severely impaired foundations.
You cannot build a stable future on a crooked foundation.
To build a future on damaged and non-stable foundations will ultimately assure that the building that you build will not last.
Just as we're here today to seek to correct the wrongs of 1969, there will be others here standing in this place, standing in other places to correct the injustices that are not corrected today.
The continuation of injustice does not mean that you win.
It simply means the delay of what is inevitable, and that is the fact of justice.
It will never be delayed forever.
How many dreams have been destroyed?
How many hopes dashed?
How much potential wealth has been lost.
How many skilled laborers capable people have been crushed?
How many of our Children have been locked up in jail in prison because of war of a war on drugs which targeted this community?
How many of them have been diminished simply because that was their only way out?
Time has come long since past for us to correct this problem, fix the foundation, fix what is broken.
You cannot continue to build on something that is not correct.
Our request is that the land be restored, the land be given back as a beginning, that the New Hope Development Institute be given the money needed to build the low-income housing, that a fund be set up to make sure that money is available for reparations for people who need to live to move back into this area and cannot afford the present housing costs.
I read yesterday where Mr. Bezos gave $100 billion to a black man.
But the Bible teaches me that charity begins at home and spreads abroad.
You made your money here.
The resources should go now to the homeless that litter our streets, to those who have been displaced, to the need for housing.
Charity always began where you live.
So my hope is that Mr. Bezos will take seriously the needs of Seattle.
There are people crying right now from bridges, from cars, laying on street corners, people who have been displaced, who need help right here in your own backyard.
We need that help.
And we are asking city council now to give us that relief.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Reverend Jeffrey, for your inspiring words.
As I mentioned before, my name is Asaya Corbray.
I'm a project manager, community, and housing developer with the Low Income Housing Institute.
Lehigh has been proud to be a partner to the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church for several years now, first starting out once the Missionary Baptist Church sponsored the True Hope Tiny House Village on 17th and Yesler, and now as development consultant for their first affordable housing project, the New Hope Family Housing Project.
New Hope Family Housing is part of what the black clergy and central area community members have been calling for for some years.
including June of last year when we stood here right outside of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and advocated for thousands of new affordable homes, more tiny house villages, and more funding for gentrifying communities.
Lehigh is proud to stand with Reverend Jeffrey and the Central Area community in supporting the proposed resolution from Council Member Sawant's office, calling for the City Council to officially acknowledge the wrongs done to the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and central area communities in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
The New Hope Church has been denied the opportunity to benefit from the increasing land values in one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, and the city of Seattle sanctioned this.
The resolution is not just asking for the City Council to acknowledge this.
It's much, much more than that.
We're asking the City to commit to funding the New Hope Family Housing Project and compensate the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church for the land that was taken from them in 1969. The New Hope Community Development Institute, a non-profit affiliated organization started by the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church leadership, will be requesting funds from the city of Seattle this fall during their annual affordable housing funding round.
While the city has limited funds available, we believe that the central area is more than deserving of these funds.
The New Hope Family Housing Project will provide approximately 90 units, studios, one bedrooms, two bedrooms, and three bedrooms for families, individuals, and others earning 30 and 50 percent of the area median income.
The New Hope Family Housing Project is proud to utilize the community preference policy, prioritizing housing for central area residents that are at risk of displacement or have already been displaced.
offering them a path to move back into their home, into their community.
All in all, we need more funding for low-income housing.
The city must commit to allocating funds towards greatly expanding the supply and development of low-income housing units, bringing back households who have been displaced by racist policies like redlining, urban renewal, weed and seed, and the drastically rising cost of living and housing costs in this city.
According to the Puget Sound Regional Council's Transportation Survey, the overwhelming reason for displacement is rent increases.
Over the past several decades, there has been a massive displacement and gentrification of our neighborhoods in this city, primarily driven by skyrocketing rents, forcing thousands from their homes, neighborhoods, and often from the city.
We know that communities of color are most disproportionately affected.
Not only are we robbed of the opportunity to accrue wealth through ownership, but we're denied stability in an ever uncertain growing and competitive rental market.
Lehigh strongly supports the efforts of Council Member Sawant's office and what our community is leading to follow up with the resolution with actionable items and proposals in the city's budget this year to fund these affordable housing projects without delay.
We urge all city council members, Seattle residents, and allies to stand with New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and the central area to deliver these solutions and dismantle the systems of gentrification, racist, and economic redlining our communities have long been facing.
Thank you very much.
And now I am incredibly proud to introduce the pastor of True Vine of Holiness Baptist Church, Reverend Lawrence Willis.
Good morning, everyone.
As we stand together, we also stand, I stand as president of United Black Christian Clergy that represents over 25 to 30 churches in the Seattle area.
We stand in support of Pastor Jeffries and the New Hope development because we have seen for so many years predatory lending, redlining that has affected especially African American families in this city.
And so we stand together in unity.
Because united we will stand, divided we'll fall.
So we're standing in unity today to give back the property that was taken from the New Hope Church.
And we will stand together as long as it takes for New Hope to get that development going.
And so we're asking you, we're pleading with you to give reparations back, to give back what's been stolen and taken.
Balance the tables so we will have an equitable community and we'll be able to serve the community the way that is intended to have fairness, to have right wages, to be able to have right affordable living, affordable land, and working together to develop this.
So we stand together with Pastor Jeffries, with the low income housing, with all these organizations that are here in support.
So stand with us and be with us as we move forward in this effort.
Thank you and God bless you.
Thank you very much, Pastor Willis.
Next, I'd like to introduce Senior Pastor of the Bethany United Church of Christ, Reverend Angela Ying.
Good morning.
As a mother, sister, daughter, minister, Asian-American woman, and person of color living on the South End, I join in standing with people everywhere as we seek reparations for our black sisters and brothers nationally and right here locally in the Central District with New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and Reverend Jeffrey.
As ACLU eloquently states in our fight for H.R.
40, for reparations for our African Americans, no amount of material resources or monetary compensation can ever be sufficient.
Restitution for the spiritual, mental, cultural, and physical damage inflicted on African Americans, ripped from their families and nations to labor for the enrichment of the United States.
After the abolition of slavery, those emancipated suffered violent repression, oppression, exploitation, and deprivation under Jim Crow laws and black codes in the South, as well as de facto segregation in every region in this nation.
Reparations are not a symbolic act.
They are a real and necessary demand for justice that's gaining support everywhere, and it begins right here in our Seattle Central District.
Fifty years ago, the city of Seattle, as Reverend Jeffrey shared, forced our working-class black families, including members of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, to sell their homes under threat of eminent domain and give up precious land.
We, together, Together we want the land returned to build affordable housing so our BIPOC return to our seedy neighborhood.
Join New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Council Member Shama Sawant, and hundreds of faith and community leaders of King County NAACP, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, Black Lives Matter, the Japanese American Citizen League, who they fought and won reparations after they were interned and put into concentration camps after the executive order of 9066, February 1942, 80 years ago.
joined Bethany United Church of Christ, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Northwest African American Museum, the MLK Committee and its members, Low Income Housing Institute, Black Clergy, here with me united in Black Clergy, El Centro de la Raza, advocates and organizers of HR 40, the socialists that are continuing to demand for justice and African American reparations and you, and so many more.
We the people, including you, join us as we rally for reparations for African Americans.
The time is now.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Reverend Yang.
Now I'm pleased to introduce a close friend and ally of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, Eddie Rye.
My name is Eddie Rye Jr.
I'm representing the Washington State Civil Rights Coalition.
In 1972, I was chair of the Central Seattle Community Council Housing Federation's Housing Committee.
In 1973, we dropped the first report on redlining of the central area.
So just about 50 years ago, this whole process has been in play.
We had all kinds of demonstrations.
We had members of the clergy painting red lines around certain parts of the central area.
We painted a red line in front of the Seattle First, the black box on 4th Avenue.
We painted a red line around there.
Eventually, President Gerald Ford dispatched the Secretary of HUD, Carla Hills, to come out to Seattle.
Mayor Wes Ullman formed what he called a Blue Ribbon Committee, we call the Red Ribbon Committee.
So as we can see, this process has been undergoing for quite a while, and it's been very successful.
You know, we're talking about a community that was 85% black, is now not even 15% black, and it's all because of what I call economic apartheid.
If you look at the fact that blacks, I say African descendants of the United States are enslaved, we're not doing one half of one percent with any government agency in Washington state.
In 1998, I-200 passed.
But Governor Gary Locke issued Governor's Directive 98-01.
That killed affirmative action.
We've been imploring Governor Jay Inslee to rescind that affirmative action killing directive and replace it with an executive order so that we can be included.
We've had the same kind of program set up for 45 years.
Minorities get under a large white company.
And after 45 years, I can't count five black construction companies that are successful, that's been in business.
As a matter of fact, the Seattle Tunnel Partners Project, four black construction companies went out of business.
It has been no consideration given, no investigations, because as long as us, it just doesn't matter.
So I want to say this problem's been going on for a long time.
We need the city to do the right thing, repatriate the land to New Hope Development Council and the church.
That's where they took it from.
And the people called it urban renewal, and we called it black removal.
It was a very successful project because we've been removed.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Eddie.
And lastly, I'd like to welcome member of the Socialist Alternative and Council Member Sawant's office, Alvin Murigori.
Hi, my name is Alvin Morigori and I'm speaking here on behalf of Socialist Alternative.
I also work as a community organizer in Council Member Shama Sawant's office.
I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to speak for a few minutes.
I'm so excited for the proposal being brought forward by our office for the city to officially recognize their theft of land and compensate New Hope in the community.
The Black community of Seattle has borne the brunt of racist gentrification and redlining for decades at the hands of the political establishment and corporate landlords and developers, and we desperately need truly affordable housing.
Rents just this year have increased over 18% and in the Central District, ground zero for Seattle's gentrification.
Rising rents are the most common reason for displacement, evictions, and homelessness.
And we all know that this disproportionately affects the black community, which faces a 4.5 times higher rate of evictions than white Seattleites.
It's shameful that the democratic establishment and city hall have presided over the gentrification and displacement, helping corporate developers and landlords run roughshod over black community in Seattle.
And in contrast, we have seen how ordinary people, rank and file renters, socialists, and union members can unite to build movements that win victories.
Last year, in the midst of the pandemic that hit our communities hard, the tax Amazon movement and Black Lives Matter activists won historic victories.
We not only won the Amazon tax itself, taxing the largest corporations to the tune of $214 million a year to fund affordable housing and Green New Deal projects.
Alongside faith leaders, we want affordable and affordable housing advocates.
We also want an $18 million a year expansion in the tax to have dedicated funds annually for Central District affordable housing.
The housing and unaffordability crisis has only continued to deepen.
We know our communities need much more.
We need to increase the Amazon tax to pay for even more affordable housing in Seattle.
We need rent control.
And most immediately, I urge community members to fight alongside Council Member Sawant's office to win two crucial renters' rights.
One requiring landlord to give six months' notice of any rent increases and to pay their tenants' compensation if they force their tenant to be displaced because of high rent increases of 10% or more.
We cannot simply rely on council members, many of whom speak progressive rhetoric, but then have excuses for why it's not the right time for ordinary people to win a measure of justice in this deeply unequal city.
We will have to build a movement and pressure city council members to pass the New Hope resolution and win the $10.7 million for New Hope missionary and affordable housing for the black and brown working class people.
And that's what will be needed to win the upcoming renter's rights bill as well.
We know we can win because using our movement building approach, we have had an unparalleled track record on winning affordable housing and renter's rights victories.
In 2014, standing with the Block the Boat campaign, we forced the city's progressive Democrats to back down from spending $160 million on a north precinct police station.
Instead, the people's budget won $29 million for affordable housing.
In 2016, we won the move-in cap and payment pan legislation, which has had a transformative effect on the burden renters face simply to move into a new apartment.
That year, we also won the law that prohibits landlords from raising rents when there are housing code violations.
Last year, we won the Amazon tax.
And later, alongside Lehigh's advocacy, the People's Budget Campaign won $2 million in new funding to expand tiny home villages, a proven program to get people off the streets and into permanent housing.
Just this year, we've won a slew of renter's rights.
The right to a publicly funded lawyer for every renter facing an eviction.
The nation's strongest and only second school year eviction ban for children and public school workers.
Closing of a major loophole that allowed Seattle landlords to evict renters without cause at the end of a fixed term lease.
and forcing the city council to unanimously approve our resolution demanding the mayor and governor extend the eviction moratorium to the end of this year, which won a partial victory with the citywide moratorium extended to September 30th.
But we won these things only because community members fought for them.
And that's why I urge everyone to join us on Saturday, July 24th at noon in this park right across the street for our rally to help win the victories for New Hope Church and the black community.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for joining us this morning at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, demanding reparations and more funding for affordable housing in gentrifying neighborhoods, specifically the central area.
Once again, I'd like to invite you on Saturday at noon to join us at the Spruce Street Mini Park to discuss further and rally around the reparations for New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.
Lastly, I'd just like to welcome Reverend Jeffrey up to the stage for some closing remarks.
Thank you very much.
We have a couple of people that I want to just say something.
One is Alfred, who deals with substance abuse in our community, which is a problem.
And it's a part of what we're going to have to do as we move toward reparations to put things in our community to help heal our people, because our people have been damaged.
and we have to heal them.
We have to heal their spirits.
Alfred is on the front lines of that work.
He does it most times without help.
So I just want him to say a word.
Thank you.
Thank you.
My name is Alfred White, and I'm the founder of the League of Extraordinary People, and my focus is the root causes of gun violence.
And so, like many other issues within our community today, like reparations, part of our problem with gun violence starts with the policymakers who must address the social and economic inequalities that are the root cause of gun-impacted communities of color.
The root causes of gun violence include income inequality, poverty, underfunded public housing, under-resourced public service, underperforming schools, lack of opportunity and perceptions of hopelessness, easy access to firearms for high-risk people, Communities of color are impacted by structural inequalities rooted in racism.
The inequalities that fuel gun violence are caused by racist policies that target communities of color and create segregated and under-invested neighborhoods.
Black Americans are more likely to live in hyper-segregated, poor neighborhoods with underfunded social services, less economic opportunities, and limited health care access than white Americans.
Many disadvantaged neighborhoods face a number of ongoing challenges, including the shortage of affordable housing, inadequate infrastructure, wealth inequality, and poverty.
The unemployment rate for black Americans is at least twice as high as that of white Americans in many U.S. cities.
In addition to underqualified instructors, high-poverty urban schools face problems of outdated curriculum, dilapidated facilities, which impacts students' developmental outcomes.
Firearm violence is highly concentrated within impacted communities of color.
Nearly 60% of firearm homicide victims in the United States are black Americans, yet black Americans account for less than 18% of the population.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death for black males under the age of 55, and the second leading cause of death for Hispanic males under the age of 34. Young black males 15 to 24 are 23 times more likely to be murdered by firearms than their white counterparts, and young Hispanic males are over four times more likely to be murdered by firearms than their white counterparts.
Young black females 15 to 24 are nearly seven times more likely to be murdered by firearms than their white counterparts, and young Hispanic females are nearly two times more likely to be murdered by firearms than their white counterparts.
In 2015, 26% of firearm homicides in the U.S. occurred within the urban census tracts that contain only 1.5% of the population.
Here's something else.
In many communities of color, nearly everyone is impacted by gun violence.
A 2013 study found that among Black Americans, the likelihood of having someone within their social network die by a firearm at some point during their lifetime was 95.5%.
A survey of the Baltimore City youth ages 12 to 24 found that 42% had witnessed a shooting compared to 4% of suburban youth.
A survey of middle school children in Richmond, Virginia public school system found that 94% reported hearing gunshots and 44% of boys and 30% of girls reported witnessing a shooting.
Here's something real important.
Gun violence exposure changes the chemistry in the brain and can have lasting impacts on health, well-being, and development if left untreated.
Exposure to gun violence is associated with, they say, post-traumatic stress disorder, but actually it's complex.
It's complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which stems from slavery.
The original sin was slavery, you guys.
And so we've never addressed that about our physiology and our neurobiology.
So also, too, is antisocial behavior, depression, stunted cognitive and emotional development, risky alcohol and substance use, increased likelihood engaging in violence.
Widespread community exposure to gun violence exacerbates already existing social and economic inequalities and further perpetuates gun violence.
A study that examined 500 black American youth found that direct exposure to violence was the best predictor of whether an individual would later engage in gun-related crimes.
Analysis of gun violence in Oakland found that each gun homicide in a census track in a given year was related to five fewer job opportunities in the subsequent year.
An analysis of gun violence in D.C.
found that 10 additional gunshots in the census tract in a given year was linked to one less new business opening and one more business closing and 20 fewer jobs.
In closing, gun violence is a multifaceted challenge that demands a holistic set of solutions to the cycles of daily gun violence in impacted communities of color.
In addition to limiting easy access to firearms by high-risk people, we must address the underlying social and economic inequalities that fuel gun violence, and adequately fund community-based violence prevention and intervention efforts that build authentic relationships within those impacted.
and also support local organizations that address the social and economic inequalities at the root of gun violence.
And this was a research study developed by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence.
Thank you.
My name is Alfred White.
So if you have any questions, we would be more than glad to see.
I have a question for you.
Is it Jeffrey or Jeffries?
Jeffrey.
Jeffrey with no E's.
Okay, very good.
I'm Corwin Hayden from the Rainbow.
Thank you for your comments today, sir.
And I did read with interest your op-ed at times.
My question has to do with eminent domain seizures.
And it strikes me as a bit of a sticking wicket.
Many hundreds of homes in Seattle have been seized via eminent domain, and maybe most notably because of the I-5 construction right through downtown, including the Central District.
Do all those homes also deserve reparations in addition to the New Hope Church?
How does the city accomplish that?
Is it the city's responsibility?
And perhaps Councilwoman Solant would carry a weigh in on that as well.
Well, I think that that's why we provided evidence of racial discrimination and evidence, trace evidence that these were intentional seizures.
These were not seizures related to any kind of planning that was objective or that was distinct from removal of African American people.
These were seizures directly related to the removal of a group of people.
And I think if you can track that, if you can prove that, then that's malicious intent.
And I think that that's the thing that makes it a crime.
Not the fact itself, but the fact that it can be tracked to, it can be traced to malicious intent.
And we've done that.
And we can do that even further.
I mean, it's all in your documents.
It's all in your archives.
They didn't hide it.
They had this malicious intent to eradicate African Americans from the central area.
That's different from just building a bridge and accidentally having to remove people.
And so to relate the two is they're not relatable.
Because there's track evidence, there's evidence, written evidence that makes it different.
And I think that that is the problem.
That's the problem.
1973 report on redlining substantiates that.
That was almost 50 years ago.
So it's been in the works for over 50 years.
So the notion to try to equate this with this fight against eminent domain, people have issues about eminent domain.
I have issues about eminent domain.
But this is not just a fight against eminent domain.
This is a discussion about eminent domain being used to target a group of people in a legitimate, so-called quasi-legitimate way and get them out of the way.
And we can document that.
And now we have to quantify what that harm is.
And we are in the process of quantifying that harm.
This is not a game.
People have lost their lives.
People have been destroyed because of this.
This vicious racism is just as vicious as the plantational system, even more so because it goes under the guise of progressivism.
It goes under the guise of smiles, in a sense that we are on your side, while they're still putting you in the field with cotton, moving you farther and farther away from any area of respectability and characterizing you as the, I'm trying to remember the word in the archives, that was the undeserving poor.
If I may, it sounds as though you may be preparing legal action, a lawsuit.
I'm not preparing anything.
I'm saying we will quantify the damage.
Why shouldn't we quantify the pain?
Why shouldn't we just let the city just say, okay, here's a dime over here, here's a nickel over here.
Why shouldn't we quantify the pain over 60 years?
I mean, I'm not saying anything, I'm not doing anything.
Right now, the only thing I want is my land back.
And I want to build some housing for some poor people.
Somebody said, well, you want to put your members in there.
These houses over here we built there.
My members don't live in there.
We built those houses down there.
My members don't live in there.
This is not about my members.
This is not, that's a, that's a, that's an indicator.
That's a, that's a, that's a device, a defensive device to put the blame back on the victim.
No, we're trying to do this for the community and we can prove that.
So no, uh,
I hope I answered your question.
We've got land.
This is our land over here.
This is our land back over there.
We can build a housing.
We already have land designated for that housing.
So what's the vision if you get that land back?
The vision is to use it for housing, but I mean, we already have designated land for that housing.
But the issue is the land itself.
It's our land.
So what we use it for is our business.
We will use it for the community.
They took our land.
We don't have to decide what we're gonna do with it until we get it back.
until we get the money for it.
But we can commit that all of the resources of this church go toward helping the community.
And right now, our emphasis is on building low-income housing, on trying to get some facilities for the mental health of our community, to heal our community.
Our kids are being put in jail.
They're building new prisons for our children.
They're not trying to help us.
They're trying to lock us up, put us in prison.
And we have to begin to help ourselves, but in order to do that, we need to quantify the pain and get the resources necessary to deal with that.
And that's what this is about.
Well, either for you or for the council member, you mentioned in the resolution the compensation for the land.
Do you have an amount in mind?
Well, we're going to get an appraisal.
Like I said, we're going to quantify stuff.
We're tired of people estimating our pain and throwing chump change at us.
We need to start quantifying the pain and the suffering.
And then put figures out there for what people need to see what this pain is worth and what this pain has done to this community.
And we're gonna do that.
But yeah, we're gonna get an appraisal.
And I think we're not going to estimate somebody and say, well, it probably has gone down.
Maybe, we don't know.
And we have a lot of unprofessional professionals.
I know the property taxes are going up.
I don't know about the land.
The property taxes haven't gone down.
I live right around the corner.
They're still going up.
So I don't see how land could be going down and property taxes going up.
That doesn't make sense to me.
But of course, the people who make the rules can make up whatever they want to say.
Before we go, I just want to thank Councilwoman Sawant, who has been on the forefront of this struggle, who does not try to drive the points, but who listens, who helps.
And I know there's been this campaign, this campaign to destroy her in this city, especially in the black community and in other communities.
And this is the same campaign that is done to anybody who rises up to help the poor.
Somehow they become a villain.
Somehow they become dehumanized and demonized.
But my knowledge of Councilwoman Sawant is that she's a decent person who hasn't done anything but try to help people since she became a councilwoman.
I haven't seen her do any damage to anybody except big, fat, rich people who need a kick in the behind every now and then.
So I support her and I want, you know, there'll be no doubt about my support for her.
Somebody called me the other day saying, is this a Councilwoman Sawant's rally Saturday or this Councilwoman Sawant?
Were you with Council?
I'm with Councilwoman Sawant.
I'm with any council person who wants to do the right thing.
But these progressives, who are progressives in front of you and conservative and even racist behind closed doors and supporting racist policies.
Time's out for that.
We're gonna quantify this stuff.