When our City of St. Augustine had no African-American, woman, Hispanic or Asian city employee making more than $32,999 (as in its last EEO-4 report in 2007), out of 350 full-time equivalent employees...
When our City of St. Augustine forces African-Americans to drive on the rutted, impassible, flood-prone Riberia Street, while investing all of its repair money in white areas,
When our City builds a $25 million White Elephant Parking Garage with CRA money, spends $1.2 million on a utility bill-paying building and $400,000 skate park in a white neighborhood while forcing African-Americans to hold bake sales to pay for a $50,000 civil rights monument...
When our City Managers, past and present, are guilty of racist attitudes and stereotypes, including City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS attempting to keep a civil rights monument from our Slave Market Square...
When some locals are in denial about the fact that slaves were sold in the Slave Market Square....
When our City leaves Marshall Burns a quadriplegic due to bad police training and keeps the offending officer on duty...
When employment in city-owned and state-owned historical buildings and reproductions is almost all white (including businesses covered by Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority)....
When our City pollutes saltwater marshes in secret for years with semi-treated sewage effluent, breaking the law, not telling anyone (with City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS polling Commissioners in violation of the Sunshine Law)...
When our City deposits 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir, in a low-income and African-American area, then seeks to bring the waste back to the historically African-American community of Lincolnville...
We still have a city that is de facto segregated.
Notwithstanding the well-meaning National Park Service statement (below) about St. Augustine being one of the most segregated of cities up until 1964, it's still pretty segregated.
De facto or de jure, it's still segregation.
We need a St. Augustine National historical Park, National Seashore and Scenic Coastal Parkway, to include a national civil rights museum. See www.staugustgreen.com
2 comments:
This is one of the reasons I'm hesitant to move there even though it's so beautiful aesthically, the racial prejudice you about is ugly. I lived in California too for a while but am a native New Yorker. I'm wondering if the beauty should belong to these bigots or should we get together to start this museum now. I'll join. Why not??? Is it still dangerous to show "we shall overcome" mentality and progress. What's going on there now? Please help me decide. Thanks so much.
Be not afraid! The good people have won, and continue to win. City just hired two (2) African-American officers. Call me!
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