It’s a thing to be shot. Just ask someone who’s caught a bullet. They’ll tell you. Often with a pointed finger, lifted shirt, or a lifted pants leg. Sometimes with a sense of pride. They lived. The thing with gunshots is that, normally, the entry wound is the easy...
There Goes The Neighborhood: Combating Displacement in Richmond’s Historically Black Neighborhoods
I grew up in the old Harlem, New York. Where the hot summers would bring the kids outside to run through the fire hydrants that we turned into sprinklers, stoops and railings became the porches that we didn’t have, and the corner store was our very own Walmart of...
Housing Is The Root Of Wealth Inequality: Building An Equitable Richmond
In April of 2018, Richmond received a rude wake-up call. We were called out on the front page of the New York Times for chronically tolerating the second-highest eviction rate in the country, over 4 times the national average. Even today, in 2021, thirty percent of...
Neighborhood Self-Determination And The Vision For Equity
I’m attending a conference in Washington, D.C and it’s finally lunch break. I’ve been inside one room all morning and this break is my first opportunity to grab a bite to eat and hopefully, sit near a window with some sun. Conference attendees are milling about, and...
Black and Brown Centered Placemaking Rooted in Identity & Ownership
As a Black woman who grew up in New York and has now lived in Virginia for 18 years, I’ve seen racial differences written into every landscape of my life for as long as I can remember. I began to notice these differences when I was around 8 years old. As I rode...
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