On the Inside, Looking Out

By Betty Jean Grant

We Are Women Warriors

Betty Jean Grant

There are many ways to describe the State of the Eastside, and most of those descriptions would probably seem harsh. But one only has to look outside their door or through their windows, to still see what shocked visitors saw when they came to Jefferson Avenue and nearby Eastside streets, almost two years ago. The unpaved streets, peppered with huge pot holes and bordered by ragged or missing sidewalks and curbs, greeted the crowds of media reporters, local and national elected officials and the world, when they came to town to grieve the murder of 10 of our beloved citizens in the 5/14 Jefferson Avenue Massacre.

Not only have the street repairs remained undone, the sad situation of no housing or poor housing remains a big concern. Homelessness is at an all time high, not just among the usual drug and alcohol addicted persons or the individuals with mental and/or criminal issues, but mothers or fathers with minor children in the household. Justifiable evictions are increasingly being put on hold because many of the families being forced to leave their homes have neither the funds nor the availability of a decent apartment or house they can move to.

Some of the hardship of families having enough food to feed their families have been helped by numerous free food giveaways over the past spring and fall and by an increase in the county’s supplemental food program to eligible individuals and families. But, even as more resources are allocated to the people, the cost of food has risen so much, families are barely keeping their pantries filled.

Vacant lots continue to stay vacant. Long established black businesses continue to be sold or closed down, due to lack of growth or little support from the community they had served for generations. Children, not being involved in healthy outside play activities or exercises because many are living in big box, rental units with no play area and no exercise or community meeting rooms.

As late as 40 years ago, the Eastside was ‘Africa Town’ and we Black persons were its Kings and Queens. We owned the houses, the businesses and the economy. Legal commerce like liquor stores, clothing stores and 125 deli stores shared the resources of the community with the illegal (it’s funny both are now legal in NYS) money making ventures such as The Numbers and Weed!

Fast forward back to the present and we find our beloved eastside owned and controlled by people other than the indigenous, Black people who once populated Africa Town. We find ourselves, 60 years later, still grieving the loss of majestic trees and neighborhood unity when someone cared so little about poor and Black people that they did not think twice about ripping the heart out of our community when they put that ugly, divisive Expressway right down the middle of Humboldt Parkway!

So, 60 years after they destroyed homes, families and a Parkway, the Powers That Be are saying they want to repair the damage done to our community, not by removing the Expressway, but to double down and to do further harm to a traumatized people by putting a tunnel beneath the Expressway.

At a time when children are living in temporary housing shelters, going to school hungry and not being taught adequately, due to a few uncaring teachers; is the tunnel the best we can hope for? Is burying a half billion dollar tunnel under an Expressway that never should have been put there in the first place, the right thing to do?