When Caleb Roberts moved from Milwaukee to Texas, he knew the story of Black people in Dallas being pushed out for generations. In Milwaukee, he helped to stop a $1 billion highway project that threatened to gentrify his neighborhood after he had already seen it happen across the country. During the 20th century, across Dallas, […]
gentrification
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Culture
New Orleans Teens Are Keeping Jazz Alive Through the Trombone Shorty Academy
NEW ORLEANS — Tyler Stevenson, 17, stood in the spotlight for his solo on the same stage graced by James Brown and Buddy Guy decades ago at New Orleans’ historic nightclub Tipitina’s. This past spring was his final performance as a student of the Trombone Shorty Academy. After deepening his skills his senior year of […]
Posted inHousing, Politics & Policy
In America’s Poorest State, Unhoused People May Soon Be Jailed
NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana Gov. Landry has signed into law what the National Homelessness Law Center says is “one of the cruelest anti-homeless bills in the country.” As the Louisiana state Senate debated what the National Homelessness Law Center says is “one of the cruelest anti-homeless bills in the country,” more than 50 mainly Black […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Technology
In Chicago, a Pentagon‑backed Lab Could Price Out Black Residents
CHICAGO — By the time Jerry Whirley heard that a $9 billion quantum-computing campus was coming a few blocks from his South Shore home, most of what he actually needed from his neighborhood, like somewhere to buy medicine or groceries, had already vanished. He didn’t learn about “Quantum City” from the governor or the mayor, […]
Posted inCommunity, Culture, History
The Mardi Gras Indian Tradition Carrying Generations of Black History
NEW ORLEANS — From the porch of his family’s home in Uptown New Orleans, Gerard “Little Bo” Dollis remembers being small enough to see only feathers — plumes of red and gold that blocked out the morning sun and the party bus idling behind his father. “You couldn’t even see the bus,” said Dollis, also […]
Posted inHousing
From Watts to D.C.: How 500 Black Neighborhoods Vanished in 45 Years
Ignited by a single arrest and fueled by decades of poverty and police brutality, the Watts Uprising of 1965 turned the Los Angeles neighborhood into a national symbol of Black struggle and resilience. Thousands of Black residents like Ted Watkins Sr. rose up in anger and desperation. They were fighting for resources to maintain their […]
Posted inHousing, Partner Content
In the Shadow of the Obama Center, Chicago Residents Fight Displacement
Originally published by In These Times When Barack Obama met with Chicago residents about his proposed presidential center in 2018, the former president downplayed the threat that gentrification might pose to their communities. “We’ve got such a long way to go in terms of economic development before you’re even going to start seeing the prospect of significant gentrification,” Obama said […]
Posted inBlack Farmers, Economy, Food Access
A New Road Threatens to Displace a ‘Safe Haven’ for New Orleans’ Black Youth
NEW ORLEANS — As the youth group sat in its warm-up circle, Kennedy Turner, half-jokingly, scoffed at his peers. “Why didn’t y’all react to my prom photos in the group chat?” Quickly, Cionne Chase, 19, jumped in to explain that she did, in fact, react to the photos and most definitely did not deserve to […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
The Last Black Neighborhood in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO — In November 1978, Pete Holmes was among the hundreds of Black San Francisco residents killed in one of the most notorious mass murder-suicides in history. Three weeks later, Holmes’ granddaughter Kamillah Ealom was born in a San Francisco hospital more than 4,000 miles away from where her grandfather and others perished in […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
Moving South, Black Americans Are Weathering Climate Change
This is the fifth installment of a yearlong Capital B series on the country’s current Black migration, the most significant movement of Black people in the U.S. in 50 years. It was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative at Wake Forest University. Stephanie Roberson wasn’t expecting this phone call from […]
