“highlightedsearchterm”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Angela
“highlightedsearchterm”>Glover
PolicyLink, a national research agency dedicated to social equity,
worries that America is about to miss another
opportunity.
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Building stronger environments, especially in low-income areas, has been Glover Blackwell’s long-time passion. From 1977, when she worked in
the Urban Strategies Council in Oakland, Calif. in 1987 to her role
as senior vice president for The Rockefeller Foundation up until
she founded PolicyLink in 1999, she has
“color: black;”>advocated for equity.
“highlightedsearchterm”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Glover
Blackwell, a
St. Louis native, was in town recently to speak at the event
“Housing: Building a New Foundation for Economic Prosperity,”
hosted by Focus St. Louis.
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“Missing moments is something we keep doing again and again,” Glover Blackwell said in a conversation before her speech.
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“We missed it with the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education decision. If we had gotten on a different path, we’d be telling a different story about urban and metropolitan areas today.”
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”>The landmark decision that made segregation in public education unconstitutional helped fuel sprawl, she said. Rather than integrate schools in urban areas, whites fled to the suburbs, with middle-class blacks soon to follow. Roads, highways, exclusionary housing patterns all led to segregated enclaves in suburbia while urban areas suffered benign neglect.
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”>Divisive and spiteful partisan politics also weighs heavily on Glover Blackwell’s mind.
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”>“Cuts to community development block grants, cuts in the area of health – any effort to try and balance this budget on the backs of America’s most vulnerable ought to raise alarms,” she said.
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”>Even with deep cuts looming, Glover Blackwell insists there’s hope on the horizon. She noted President Obama’s “Sustainable Communities Initiative,” a joint-agency project involving the Department of “font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;” lang=”EN” xml:lang=”EN”>Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation. Glover said this is Obama’s attempt to “reshape the broken and counterproductive way we’ve built our communities.”
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;” lang=”EN” xml:lang=”EN”> “font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”>“There is $150 million for sustainable communities and additional resources from EPA and other agencies,” she said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“St.
Louis has been lucky enough to get one of the planning grants to
really allow communities to think in smart and inclusive ways about
how they build
community.”
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”>With 25 percent of America’s “font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>black and Latino population without access to cars and disproportionately dependent on public transportation, “smart and inclusive” planning means developments that connect people to jobs, schools, housing, health care and grocery stores, Glover Blackwell said.
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;” lang=”EN” xml:lang=”EN”>The Sustainable Communities initiative, coupled with programs such as the “font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;”>Promise Neighborhoods and Healthy Food Financing Initiative, won’t lessen the sting of social service cuts, but they will create jobs and help foster “regional equity” in “font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black;” lang=”EN” xml:lang=”EN”>urban areas, Glover Blackwell said.
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>When asked what African Americans must do to capture this moment, Glover Blackwell harkened back to her youth, growing up on Terry Avenue just blocks from the Central West End.
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>She was raised in an era when segregation defined everything for blacks. Yet, Glover Blackwell fondly remembers a sense of community and shared aspirations. She recalled how her parents and other adults relied on black newspapers to keep them informed of the unfolding Civil Rights Movement.
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I actually think that the best things that have happened for this nation is because black people led,” she said. “When black people lead for America, they not only put real force behind a movement for themselves, they help America to see its future.”
“margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Sylvester Brown Jr. is a freelance journalist and founder of When We Dream Together, a local nonprofit focused on urban revitalization.
