AUSTIN, Texas — Black residents in Central Texas are calling March 4 a victorious day that will go down in history.
Earlier this month, the City of Austin publicly acknowledged and apologized for the role it has played in disenfranchising Black residents through generations of enslavement, segregation, urban renewal, and systemic discrimination. Item 67 passed by a unanimous decision from city leaders who voted to “right the wrongs of the past.”
“The city has committed to doing the things we need them to do. One of the things the resolution calls for is for them to do an analysis and tell us the losses and what we have suffered from the 1928 master plan until now and add it to current day value, so we can actually know what price tag we need to put on this restitution and what they owe us,” said Nook Turner from the Black Austin Coalition.
The fight to restore the Black community in East Austin is personal for Turner and the Black Austin Coalition. Turner feels members of the Black community are losing businesses and homes due to gentrification in East Austin, a historically Black neighborhood.
“This was majority Black businesses and Black infrastructure and you look now, you just have the condos - you have white infrastructure. That’s why we want to rebuild for us. I mean just look at this,” said Turner.
The Black Austin Coalition along with the Black Leaders Collective brought issues of inequalities surrounding criminal justice, transportation, health care, and resources to city leaders, asking them to take a second look at the past.
Turner believes one of the biggest problems is the lack of overall infrastructure in Black communities.
The resolution calls for the Austin city manager to gather research with the help of the University of Texas and Huston-Tillotson University. They are instructed to collect data to determine a current day value of what’s owed to Black residents. Turner tells Spectrum News 1 the restitutions will be used to create a Black embassy.
“It’s going to offer resources. It’s going to offer finances. It’s going to offer A to Z for Black people’s need to rebuild a district and to be able to have sustainable life and to be able enjoy a high quality life,” said Turner.
Turner says passing Item 67 is only the beginning to restoring generational wealth in Black communities.