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Development

Why Baltimore Kept Cutting Deals With A Developer Who Didn’t Deliver

Sweat trickled down Dan Bythewood’s forehead under the hot July sun. He promised the West Baltimore crowd he would keep his comments short so the 100 or so people who watched—activists, press, residents, and political leaders—could quickly retreat from the heatwave gripping the city. The developer, who is Black, stood behind a podium placed in front of the technicolor homes on Sarah Ann Street, a narrow stretch of concrete not wide enough for two cars to travel in opposite directions. Bythewood, president of the New York development firm La Cité (“the city” in French), trained his sight on the historic Sarah Ann Street homes almost two decades ago, with plans to redevelop the houses and the surrounding Poppleton neighborhood.

Haudenosaunee Chiefs Declare Development Moratorium

Traditional Six Nations chiefs have declared a formal moratorium on development within the Haldimand Tract, a broad swath of land spanning 10 kms from either side of the Grand River as it winds its way from Dundalk, Ont. down to Lake Erie. Standing outside the Longhouse, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council said construction can’t proceed without the people’s consent — doubling down on their support for the land reclamation in Caledonia that now enters month 10. “The Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council endorses, supports and recognizes that development should not be proceeding on our lands,” Deyohowe:to Roger Silversmith, Snipe Clan chief of the Cayuga Nation, told reporters on Tuesday.

Indigenous Women Lead Land Struggle Against Wealthiest People In The US

While the United States shudders in the shambles of another election year, whether from a collective sigh of relief or fear of what’s to come, a different system of governance blooms in a swath of woodlands jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. This sandy shoreline now part of what is called Long Island has always been home to the Shinnecock people. A group of Shinnecock women, organized as the Warriors of the Sunrise, are called to rise up in the face of invasive settlement. This is not their first battle.  Members of the Shinnecock Nation know of a time before there was a Southampton

Groups Call For Federal Investigation Of City Over Toxic Industry

The city of Chicago’s role helping General Iron move from affluent white Lincoln Park to a majority-Latino Southeast Side neighborhood to make way for the Lincoln Yards redevelopment violated federal fair housing laws and should be investigated, community groups say. The move is an example of years of unfair zoning and land-use practices that discriminate against Black and Latino residents while benefiting white neighborhoods that have seen their home values soar, the groups said in a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Wednesday.

How Government And Private Industry Let The Main Street Of A Black Neighborhood Crumble

Growing up in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood in the 1960s, Annette Britton spent a lot of time on Madison Street. She picked up produce for her mother at N&S Certified Food Mart, skated at the Albany roller rink and went to movies at the Imperial Theatre. A neighborhood pharmacy, Sacramento Drugs, not only filled prescriptions but served customers ice cream at a diner in back. Durham’s, an appliance store, sold washing machines and refrigerators. Back then, stores, often with apartments above them, lined Madison Street from downtown west to the city limits.

County Must Stop Development Of Moses African Cemetery

As someone who grew up in Montgomery County, I’ve heard and seen countless declarations from acquaintances, teachers and government officials that the county is incredibly progressive when it comes to racial justice. In my experience, many of those who sustain this claim will back it up with references to the diversity of county residents or to progressive legislation such as the CROWN Act, which prohibits discrimination based on natural and protective hairstyles.  In addition, praise for Montgomery County’s progressivism has almost always included some kind of juxtaposition to more “backwards” parts of Maryland or Southern states.

Police Use Violence Against Land Defenders At Land Back Lane

Six Nations, Ontario - An argument between police and land defenders erupted in violence Thursday when officers tried to arrest someone outside a protest camp on Haudenosaunee territory. Witnesses say police fired at least six rubber bullets and tasered a young man after someone threw a rock at their cruiser. In the ensuing chaos, Ontario Provincial Police fell back to a reinforced position about 500 metres from the camp’s back entrance. “I was hit right in the fucking back,” said one young man, who did not want to be identified.

Solidarity Across Species

We are animals. While human beings often repress this basic fact, the novel coronavirus has revealed our connection to and dependence on the well-being of other creatures. In various ways, our disregard for other species led to and worsened this pandemic. To mount an adequate response—and to prevent future disasters—we need to start taking animals into consideration. Like countless fearsome diseases, including Ebola and AIDS, COVID-19 is zoonotic in origin, meaning it jumped from one species to another (likely from bats to humans).

New Documentary By David Attenborough, ‘Extinction: The Facts’

We have learned so much about nature from David Attenborough’s documentaries over the past seven decades. In a new BBC film he lays bare just how perilous the state of that nature really is, why this matters for everyone who shares this planet, and what needs to change. This film is radical. Surprisingly radical. I have written in the past about my growing frustration with Attenborough documentaries continuing, decade after decade, to depict nature as untouched by any mark of humans. I felt this might be contributing to unhelpful complacency about how much “wild” was really left.

People Are Protesting The Desecration Of A Historic Black Cemetery

This summer, on an industrial and commercial section of River Road near the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda, you can regularly find area musician Brian Farrow in the roadway playing “Potter’s Hornpipe,” a song written by Black composer Francis Johnson in 1816 in honor of a destroyed African American cemetery. Nearby, protestors hold signs that say “Black Ancestors Matter” and “Black Lives Matter from Cradle to Grave,” while Marsha Coleman-Adebayo of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition and Macedonia Baptist Church leads chants of “Save Moses Cemetery!”

Self-Storage Removes Evidence From Cemetery And Denies Archeologist Access

Bethesda, MD -- Over 100 dump trucks removed hundreds of cubic feet of soil containing evidence of burials in Moses Cemetery from the disputed site along River Road. Photographs were taken of site managers removing bottles and other glass features, common in African and African American burials, from the cemetery and ignoring objects shaped like headstones (see below.) The community maintains that the company is out of compliance in several essential areas. The Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC) has been protesting Bethesda Self-Storage Company's excavation to build a large storage facility on top of Moses Cemetery.

A Community Fights The County To Show Black Ancestor’s Lives Matter

Clearing the FOG co-hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese interviewed Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition about the struggle in her community to reclaim an African cemetery currently buried under a parking lot. Since discovering the cemetery, residents of Bethesda have uncovered the brutal treatment of Africans who lived there starting with being worked to death on a tobacco plantation that later turned to forced sexual exploitation and breeding for profit. Once they were freed, African residents set up a thriving community that was then taken over through gentrification. It is an amazing story of fortitude for those who lived through it and for the community that is now fighting the county to honor the memory of what happened.

How An African Cemetery Under A Parking Lot Galvanized A Community To Fight White Supremacy

The United States still has a long way to go to come to terms with its history of being founded on genocide and slavery. In recent years, we have heard about efforts to take down monuments to those who perpetrated these crimes. What we rarely hear are the stories of how that genocide and slavery have been covered up and how even today there are barriers to those who seek to expose them. One such effort is taking place right now in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo tells us the riveting story of her discovery of an African Cemetery under a parking lot. She has led a community effort to stop a building from being erected on the site, which has unearthed a horrific past experienced by former residents of that land and has become a struggle against gentrification and white supremacy.

Battle Of The Ages To Stop Eurasian Integration

Coming decade could see the US take on Russia, China and Iran over the New Silk Road connection. The Raging Twenties started with a bang with the targeted assassination of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani. Yet a bigger bang awaits us throughout the decade: the myriad declinations of the New Great Game in Eurasia, which pits the US against Russia, China and Iran, the three major nodes of Eurasia integration. Every game-changing act in geopolitics and geoeconomics in the coming decade will have to be analyzed in connection to this epic clash.

De Blasio Rejects Community’s Plan For Bushwick Rezoning

Mayor Bill de Blasio has rejected a community-driven rezoning proposal for Bushwick, dealing a significant blow to local residents who spent years drafting a blueprint aimed at addressing gentrification and displacement in the rapidly changing neighborhood. The administration's decision was outlined in a letter delivered to local stakeholders this weekend by Deputy Mayor Vicki Breen, who said she was "deeply concerned" that aspects of the community plan amounted to a downzoning.
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