Public Comment

A first pandemic visit to Tulsa family happened to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Memorial Day 1921 massacre inflicted upon the Black residents of Greenwood, a prosperous community across the tracks from downtown Tulsa, originally settled by former Black slaves of Native Americans who were forced to leave their lands east of the Mississippi for Oklahoma and west. This exodus, known as the Trail of Tears, started in 1830.

With the end of the Civil War, freed Black slaves of the aboriginal peoples were declared full tribal members and were granted 160 acre allotments of land considered undesirable—that is until oil was struck, fueling the prosperity of the cohesive Greenwood community. Racial and economic tension built, until a vague incident involving a Black man and white woman was fanned into an angry and armed White mob attacking predominantly Black Greenwood. In one day this resulted in an estimated 300 deaths to residents and 1,500 left homeless. Thirty-five square blocks were burned to the ground, including the thriving commercial district known as the ‘Black Wall Street’, in a race war aided and abetted by the authorities, including an attack from planes armed with machine guns and turpentine bombs. 

Misnaming the massacre a riot, insurance companies had the justification to invoke the riot exclusion clauses in the victims' insurance policies to avoid paying fire damage claims. The history of this staggering event was systematically erased so effectively that even my brother-in-law, who came of age in Tulsa and graduated in law, was unaware of the episode until last year, when a mass grave was unearthed at the instigation of surviving descendants of the Greenwood community, some of whom live there now. 

The 100th anniversary commemoration week included a speech by President Joe Biden at the Greenwood Cultural Center and a hearing at the Tulsa City Council, which acknowledged the great injustice, though it stopped short of calling for reparations. During the week another mass grave was unearthed. Brief mention was made in local newspaper coverage that the impetus behind the massacre was tacit encouragement from real estate interests. They were intent on expanding commercial downtown Tulsa north into Greenwood, by acquiring the land at distressed prices from a devastated community rendered bare. In the 1960s highway I-244 further dismembered Greenwood. 

Learning of this historic land grab caused me to reflect on the current surge of real estate activity and attendant prices in California, where private equity firms are scooping up property in anticipation of the raft of up-zoning and deregulation measures proposed at the state and local level. A major player behind these measures is California YIMBY, a lobbying organization funded by real estate and technology interests. 

The same sort of money has backed campaigns of local state representatives, including Senator Nancy Skinner (SD-9, Dem.) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (AD-15, Dem.) along with Berkeley councilpersons Lori Droste (D-8) and newly elected Terry Taplin (D-2), who with Mayor Jesse Arreguín and councilpersons Rigel Robinson (D-7) and Rashi Kesarwani (D-1) form a council majority that has authored and sponsored several proposed up-zoning measures, claiming the effort is all in the interest of providing affordable housing. However, there is no commensurate affordable housing mandate included in these efforts. 

It appears that market forces, AKA trickle-down economics, are being counted on to address the ever increasing need for affordable housing. What has been amply demonstrated is that up-zoning fuels speculation and increases land prices, accelerating gentrification and pushing housing further out of reach for many more. What amounts to economic discrimination disproportionately impacts communities of color, as evidenced by the alarming drop in the Black population of Berkeley over the past decade, with thousands of new ‘luxury’ units constructed or approved and an embarrassingly scant number of affordable units. 

Berkeley's pushback against proposed state measures that override local jurisdiction is taking the form of a proposed resolution, authored by Berkeley Councilmembers Kate Harrison (D-4) and Susan Wengraf (D-6) and co-sponsored by Sophie Hahn (D-5)opposing Senate Bill 9, the state ‘duplex’ bill co-authored by Wicks and supported by Skinner that allows building at least 6 units—not just two— with ministerial or by-right approval, on lots where a single houses now stand. 

The test of allegiance to the community over real estate interests will come this Tuesday, June 15th, when the Berkeley City Council considers and votes on the resolution opposing SB-9. Your councilperson would love to hear from you: clerk@cityofberkeley.info and council@cityofberkeley.info 

Patrick Sheahan, is an architect and was formerly a member of the Berkeley Planning and Zoning Commissions