Joy cometh in the morning, the scripture says.
This morning is especially joyful for residents of Lincolnville.
City of St. Augustine officials broke ground today for the $10-11 million Riberia Street drainage, bulkheads, sidewalks and paving. ALL of Riberia Street will be fixed.
This never would have happened without City Manager John Regan and local activist residents, who did not take "no" for an answer.
A prior city manager wanted to stop work on Riberia Street at Bridge Street, and fix the rest of the street in the sweet bye-and-bye (presumably using the proceeds of bake sales, which is what was required for the Footsolders Civil Rights Monument, to be dedicated May 14th.
In response to the City's illegal plan to stop at Bridge Street (think "Division Street America" or the Mason-Dixon line), activists informed the City that this would violate the Fourteenth Amendment (Equal Protection). Buttons were prepared -- RIberia Street: Fix it == ALL or None."
Activists did not give up, returning again and again to urge that the street be paved properly.
In response, the City floated a bond issue. I am proud of the growth that I have seen in our City government since April 2005, when I attended my first City Commission meeting. In playwright Tony Kushner’s words, in Angels in America, “only in politics does the miraculous occur.”I am prouder than ever to live in St. Augustine, Florida today.
Lincolnville (formerly Little Africa) was founded by freed slaves in St. Augustine, Florida, locus of the first slaves brought to what is now the United States of America, back in 1565. See Judith Seraphin’s letter in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine (below).
From now on, you can call Riberia Street by its new nickname – “here we right a wrong street.” The $10-11 million Riberia Street improvements will be a de facto monument to the courage of the civil rights Footsoldiers, whose neighborhoods were denied equal expenditures under prior City Administrations.
Our City now respects and understands Environmental Justice. Six cheers!
Riberia Street construction evidences the continuing vitality of our American Founders vision. In the words of Alexander Hamilton, "Here sir, the people govern." ALEXANDER HAMILTON, remarks at the New York convention on the adoption of the federal Constitution, Poughkeepsie, New York, June 27, 1788.—Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution…, vol. 2, p. 348 (1836, reprinted 1937).
Next stop – Congress and DOT need to order an Interstate 95 (I-95) interchange serving West Augustine, West King Street and downtown St. Augustine, thereby relieving traffic congestion. There we will right another wrong. That can be done as part of the St. Augustine National Historical Park, National Seashore and Scenic Coastal Parkway Act, an earlier draft of which may be read here: www.staugustgreen.com.
We shall overcome.
To invoke the Latin name of the historic museum that once housed a segregated high school in Lincolnville: “Excelsior” (onward and upward)!
Riberia Street (courtesy of City of St. Augustine, Florida)
Photo credit: Marie Bermudez-Phillip
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