By Jeffery Kazembe Batts
IG: @kazbatts
At the turn of the twenty-first century, Brooklyn had the largest concentrated population of Black people in the United States. Large percentages of Crown Heights, Fort Greene, and especially Bed-Stuy have seen the neighborhoods changing from Black to White over the last 20 years.
Some of the remaining Black people have had enough and are organizing to keep their apartments and homes in the borough. Anger at the wide gentrification of traditionally Black communities is boiling over at public meetings.
At the February 3rd Community Board 3 meeting at the Bed-Stuy Restoration Plaza, scores of people could barely fit into the crowded first-floor multi-purpose room to participate and express themselves. The meeting agenda included a presentation and request regarding CB Emmanuel Realty LLC wanting a zoning change to build a taller unit at 109 Marcus Garvey Blvd.
After the legal representative for the realty firm, Eric Palatnik, showed diagrams of the planned 14-story building, the meeting heated up. Long-time residents of nearby buildings also owned by the company tore into Mr. Palatnik’s presentation and the manager who sat near the front.
The mostly women, including a police officer, wanted to know how they could plan to build a new modern building when they had not taken care of the existing buildings which needed repairs and the lack of security.
Loud expressions of anger dominated the meeting as person after person stood up and complained about the demographic, Black to white, changes happening in real-time and demanded the Community Board and developers acknowledge and respond to their concerns.
Later during the week on Saturday, February 8th Crystal Hudson, the 35th councilmanic district representative hosted a meeting at the Brooklyn Museum. Outside members of the Uhuru Movement, the December 12th Movement, and others marched, held signs, and displayed the red, black, and green flags while protesting the policies of the councilwoman.
Councilperson Hudson defended her leadership as she and her team sat facing the community. Homelessness and police harassment were passionately and forcefully shared, bringing the usually noisy and bustling front space of the museum to silence as participants and passersby listened.
The session allowed those who wanted to take the microphone with numerous people describing the unhelpful interactions with her staff and their deteriorating housing conditions, even as new properties are being considered and built in the district.
Whether at the Bed-Stuy Restoration Plaza or the Brooklyn Museum, Black people are showing up to let elected and appointed officials know that they are outraged that they are not implementing policies that maintain Black people’s ability to live their best lives in well-maintained affordable housing.
With the tension between renters, owners, and developers boiling, without a doubt, as winter turns to spring, the local election cycle starts, and the national political administration implementing autocratic anti-people and pro-corporation policies, more opportunities for the people to “speak truth to power” will happen throughout Central Brooklyn and beyond.