The Effort to Push Blacks and Cape Verdeans Out of the East Side - Watson

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Raymond Two Hawks Watson, MINDSETTER™

 

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Raymond Two Hawks Watson

In 2005 I graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a Masters in Community Planning, concentrating in Housing and Community Development. My final research project focused on the impact of gentrification on the Fox Point neighborhood in Providence. I was particularly interested in the social impacts resulting from the construction of Interstate 195 east in the mid-20th century. Having read about New York City’s Robert Moses and the infamous construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway which displaced approximately 1,500 families, primarily Jewish and African American, I wanted to know whether similar policies had been enacted in Providence and whether such policies may have targeted Fox Point in particular. I found what I was looking for.

I conducted interviews, read official documentation and historical reports, analyzed the information, and ultimately concluded that there was a very strong possibility that Fox Point’s growing Cape Verdean community had been targeted through urban renewal policies to disrupt its economic and political base and dislocate its population from the neighborhood. . . at least that’s what it looked like to me.

This connected a lot of dots regarding what I had heard growing up; about how it used to be on the East Side. Given my lack of knowledge at the time, this didn’t make sense to me. Although there were many in Fox Point and on the East Side, most of the Cape Verdean families lived in East Providence or in Pawtucket. Likewise, most of the Black American families lived on the South Side; on the North End near Chad Brown; or in the West End from Route 10 up Cranston Street to Wiggins Village behind Classical and Central high schools (super Rhode Island, I know). There were also still some Black American families on the East Side in Mt Hope. My family was one of them even though we were Narragansett. In hindsight, I realize how many other families in the neighborhood shared similar heritages.

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Mt Hope wasn’t really that large of a neighborhood. It ran from Rochambeau Avenue to Olney Street, and from North Main Street to Hope Street; a total of 13 blocks by approximately 7 blocks including all the University Heights complex. From an economic and social perspective, Mt Hope was quite the contrast from the rest of the East Side. Mt Hope was ethnically and culturally diverse, with a sizeable Russian Jewish population in addition to the Cape Verdean, Black American, and “White” families that lived there as well. Mt Hope was also an interesting mix of working-class to upper-middle-class households, becoming wealthier the further you got from North Main Street and the closer you got to Hope Street. Mt Hope also had a full-fledged shopping plaza complete with a McDonald’s, supermarket, and various other businesses. As a youth, I often wondered how this small pocket of Cape Verdean and Black American families had come to call this part of the East Side home. As far as I knew, most of the Black families lived across the city.

My point in sharing this perspective is that I simply couldn’t conceive that at one point in the not-so-distant past most of the Black families of Providence had lived on the East Side and in Fox Point. It just didn’t make any sense. Where had they all gone?

Last week I concluded my remarks referencing that in the early 20th century Providence was the third largest community of American Indians in the United States. Throughout this four-part Black History Month series, I have continually asserted that the African heritage and Indigenous communities of Providence collectively comprise Providence’s Black community because of their persisting experiences with disenfranchisement and marginalization in Providence. Lastly, and fundamental to this week’s discussion, I posed two questions; what happened to the extremely large indigenous population living in Providence less than a hundred years ago, and how is that experience symbiotic with and a determining factor for properly understanding the current challenges faced by Providence’s Black community?

Plainly stated, there’s a very strong possibility that the City of Providence and State of Rhode Island proactively endorsed, adopted, and implemented urban renewal policies and projects in the 1950s and 1960s that targeted African heritage and Indigenous communities in Providence, decimated their economic and political bases, and dislocated them into overall worse quality of life; and further that the legacy of these policies continues to negatively impact Providence’s African heritage and Indigenous communities today . . . at least that’s what it looks like to me.

If you want to go further down the rabbit hole consider that Jonathan “Globe” Lewis, Director of the Institute for Social Cohesion, has noted the historical correlation between federal funding for urban renewal initiatives nationwide and the impact of the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts during the Civil Rights era. I mean think about it; millions of dollars in federal funding just happen to start flowing to local governments to implement urban renewal initiatives that comprehensively decimate the political and economic bases of and dislocate Black communities across the country while Black communities in the south are mobilizing and exercising their economic and political might to change federal policy? Mere coincidence? Maybe . . . maybe not.

Why do Mr. Lewis and I feel confident making such weighty assertions? For that answer I turn your attention to the City of Providence’s press conference being held on Monday, February 28, 2022, at 10:30 am.

Over the past seven months, the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative worked collaboratively with Roger Williams University. specifically, Dr. Brian Hendrickson, to develop a Framework for Reconciliation to serve as the strategy for Mayor Elorza and the City of Providence to transition into phase three of the Truth Telling, Reconciliation, and Reparations initiative that began in 2020; the dreaded “R” word.

Mr. Lewis and I were intimately involved throughout the entirety of the process. The final presentation of the Reconciliation framework to the City of Providence’s African American Ambassadors Group was well received. We conducted the interviews, read the official documentation and historical reports, analyzed the information, and once again . . . we found what we were looking for. Mayor Elorza will be presenting the Reconciliation framework at Monday’s press conference.

This commentary will be the last of this series specifically dedicated to the 2022 Black History Month. I will end with these remarks.

Black History is American history. No matter how you slice it, the legacies of the African heritage and Indigenous communities of Providence are as fundamental to the city as those of the Europeans who first arrived under the auspices of discovering new lands and all the other communities that have come after.

Treat Black History like it’s American History . . . because it is.

Happy Black History Month.

Not that you asked, but that’s my three cents, in case you were wondering.

Raymond Two Hawks Watson

 

Watson is a civil rights leader in Rhode Island. He has an accomplished career in business. He is the founder of the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative. Watson holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Union College in NY, a Master's Degree in Community Planning from the University of Rhode Island, and is a current Juris Doctorate Candidate at the Roger Williams University School of Law. Watson is also the recipient of the Rhode Island Foundation’s 2016 Innovation Fellowship.

 

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