After the movie screening…
I was left with a lasting impression from the movie RAZED and the panelist we experienced. I am thankful of the filmmaker supporting an equitable production and centering community as the Executive Producer, reflective of the awareness of the place of the non black video production company in capturing such tragic losses.
At a point in the production I had to bee-line out of the room to allow myself to process the stories in the film. Forcibly removed from their prosperous community, many connetions were lost, many lives were affected and to this day working to mentally and financially recover. Most of the community that was displaced for the false promise of affordable housing and an industrial park, only to receive a stadium for a baseball team that took 13 yrs to convince and presently planning to leave the city. The Griot who shared with us her account sat with an observant eye as all the staff were going through their emotions. Her political IQ and relationships threaded through her lifetime culminated into yearning for more storytelling.
That next day, I went to the bridge, a former railroad track hovering over the creek connecting a massive parking lot. The lot once was a thriving community, a community deeply rooted in religion, education, business, and intimately and effectively guiding the youth into productive futures. The massive empty asphalt lot with original trees sprinkled about, to me, looked like a cemetery of a community, just as many other thriving Black communities went though their own form of torture and death to eminent domain. I carefully stepped down the rocks under the bridge and found a seat. Eyes closed, I meditated and envisioned children playing in the creek, young lovers skinny dipping, and the lingering smell of the Gas plant. I am not sure if it was the tarred rail ties covered with a concrete path was the smell or if it was the impression left by the stories shared. What I am sure about is the cover up of the railroad with a walk way, the cover up of a community with an asphalt parking lot, the cover up of Black churches with condos and industry, the cover up of the lies told to the community. Seeing engraved sidewalk markers of the pioneers of the baseball stadium diluting and erasing the displacement of an entire community.
One survivor who shared his lived experience pointed out a tree to revisit. A tree that at one time provided shade for his home. The process of healing was needed for myself as well. I walked the lot eyes locked on the twists and turns of the trunk and branches, the cuts of the limbs, and the scars of life asking the trees to speak to me. It was a silent conversation left with many gaps to fill. The next day I had the opportunity to return to the area. I wanted to visit the site of what were the churches in that community. Before I get to the first location, “Near this area, John Evans was lynched.”
An entirely new study arose deepening the oppression of Black People in St. Pete at the intersection of the once segregated area of Black and White communities. The first chrch site that was destroyed seems to become a condominium across from the Stadium, the second church site I searched seemed to be lost. I feverishly walked back and forth, swiping from the historical church image and the site current development or lack thereof. I left to board my plane back home with my curiosity unsatisfied. I needed to know the whole story. The making breaking and remaking of my community. This story is repeated in many versions across the Gulf South, unfortunately relatable to people of color. And societies answer, “that’s unfortunate”. Even when Black communities have followed the path of the American Dream we are still denied equal treatment under the law. Yes I dropped tear, but may late Mom voice sang in my head “ok, you cried, now what are you going to do a bout it?” My life’s mission is to leave this world better than I found it, starting with my community. ⅗ a human, fought for civil right, voting rights, economic prosperity all to be challenged, denied, and taken. So we sing the rhythm and the blues, we move to the beat of the drum that kept us going through the transatlantic trade, Jim Crow, and modern day erasure of Black history. Even the story of the destruction of this community did not have a historical plaque on the Tropicana Baseball field. Only one of a lyncing by a white mod. Memorialized pain not memorialized gain and togetherness.
