Features

We all know that street crime is a problem in Berkeley. While we may differ as to its causes, we all understand that the economic transformation currently underway in South Berkeley is a huge contributor to that problem. Economic dislocation and gentrification are the realities of South Berkeley. In many neighborhoods, economic “gaps” between residents contribute to generate tension and suspicion. Newly arrived, white neighbors are offen are offended by the conditions they find in these neighborhoods. Working closely with police to identify “suspicious” people and “drug dealers,” neighborhood groups are finding “creative ways” to “combat” drug dealers. Apparently, this includes holding an 75-year-old woman responsible for “allowing” drug activity in her neighborhood. 

Lenora Moore is an elderly African American woman who was born and raised in Berkeley. In 1919, Lenora Moore’s grandmother bought a house at 1610 Oregon St. Many years later, in 1963, Ms. Moore purchased the house from her grandmother and has lived there ever since. She has six sons, 36 grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and a host of cousins, uncles and other family members throughout the Berkeley/Oakland area. 

Ms. Moore’s family grew up in boom-town Berkeley, a Berkeley that was a land of opportunity because of the wartime shipbuilding and growing manufacturing sector. The good times did not last. By the 1970 and ‘80s the economic gap between whites and blacks was growing again. Gone were the days of good paying union jobs and the chance to learn a trade. The economy was changing, but it did not seem to provide for the working class residents of the city. Instead, with fewer opportunities and more temptation to participate in the illegal economy, street level drug dealing grew in many parts of the city. 

Today, the neighbors of Ms. Moore contend that her relatives sell drugs, play loud music, leave litter around and are generally difficult to live near. A raid of the Moore house recovered some drugs in the room of one middle-aged son and a handgun. The son went to jail for this, but now the neighbors figure that Ms. Moore should be punished as well. They accuse her of failing to stop drug activity not only by a relative who she allowed to stay with her, but all drug activity”in the area.” They don’t seem to care whether Lenora had any part in the drug activity or not or whether she was even aware of it. They believe that the family itself attracts undesirable people to the neighborhood and their real objective is to get Ms. Moore to sell her house. This was made clear to Ms. Moore in letters from Neighborhood Solutions, Inc. on behalf of the neighbors. 

Unfortunately, the neighborhood group bases much of its analysis on observations made from afar and based on heresay and generalizations. The Moore family is close to 100 people or more in this area. These are people who have lived in Berkeley for their entire lives. Ms. Moore’s house is widely known because the network of family and friends that have known and visited that house is huge. While the neighbors maintain that there is “drug activity” day and night, it is also true that there is a lot of traffic coming and going from the house because so many relatives feel that they have a connection to the house. Not every gathering of African Americans is for the purpose of drug dealing as the case presented by the neighbors might suggest. 

The fact that the law allows neighbors to punish an elderly woman for failing to do what the city’s Police Department could not is beyond absurd. It is racist and wrong. This is a woman who goes to work everyday and struggles to keep her family together. Her record of service to this community spans 60-plus years. She started programs for children, clinics for women, services for the elderly and a huge variety of public service projects. To the degree that members of Ms. Moore’s family have need of drug rehabilitation, therapy, education and financial assistance, they should be given this help. Perhaps the situation would not have become so tense if someone had recognized that Ms. Moore was struggling and doing her best to keep up with the demands of so many grown children and grandchildren. What Lenora needs is help not punishment. 

Rather than the adversity that a courtroom situation promotes, the neighbors and Ms. Moore would be best served by a problem-solving, relationship building approach. The fact is that Ms. Moore is the social net for her family. She continues to struggle to feed those who are hungry; take in the children if the mother is not able to parent; give rides, make calls and try to help her relatives to get their lives together. The stability she provides could also be said to offer the possibility of rehabilitation. 

If the neighbors succeed and Ms. Moore is forced deeper into debt, what will have been accomplished? South Berkeley will still have a drug problem and the neighbors will be no closer to achieving what they claim to want. Make no mistake; the neighbors have complaints and they deserve to have these complaints heard. Yet, if we truly have a mind for justice—real justice—then a woman whose greatest crime is loving her family and trying to help them get on their feet would not be facing the possibility of poverty and homelessness. 

Andrea Prichett is a member of CopWatch and a South Berkeley resident. 

›