Community Relations History

Community harmony matters to us all

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee (CRC) was formed in 1961 when then-Mayor Stanford R. Brookshire appointed a group of citizens to address race relations in Charlotte. The committee first intervened in a major public controversy when a group of African American citizens protested discrimination in public facilities.

The CRC has been an integral part of the human relations support system for the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County for more than 50 years. The human relations issues that Charlotte faces today are broader and require more depth of understanding to resolve. For example, we encouraged and facilitated community dialogue surrounding the removal of the confederate flag at historic Elmwood Cemetery.

CRC publications that once narrowly focused on black and white racial tensions and are now available in a number of languages and address a myriad an intergroup ethnic, cultural, religious and racial issue.

 

 

Dr. Tom Hanson Transcription

 

00:00
charlotte-Mecklenburg community
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relations its place in charlotte history
00:04
then and now I'm Tom Hanson I'm
00:07
community historian and you can find
00:10
more of my work at WWDC South org I
00:14
retired recently from Levine Museum of
00:16
the new south where I was the staff
00:19
historian for many years I've also
00:20
worked with Historic Landmarks
00:22
Commission in Charlotte Charlotte
00:24
Mecklenburg Community Relations is the
00:26
human relations agency for the City of
00:28
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County the
00:30
department seeks to enhance community
00:32
harmony and promote awareness of
00:33
Charlotte Mecklenburg growing
00:35
multiculturalism by facilitating
00:37
community dialogue addressing
00:39
discrimination through enforcement of
00:41
the city's fair housing ordinance
00:42
collaborating with the police
00:44
serving as mediators in conflict
00:46
resolution and ensuring Americans with
00:49
Disability Act compliance Charlotte
00:52
Mecklenburg community relations has its
00:54
roots in the civil rights movement in
00:56
Charlotte and what I'd like to do today
00:59
is give a sense of how the organization
01:03
came to be but also to place it in its
01:07
wider context I'm going to start out by
01:10
talking about the era of deepening
01:12
segregation from the 1900s into the
01:16
1960s that sets the stage for the civil
01:20
rights movement in general and
01:21
specifically for the Community Relations
01:23
office then I'll talk about that civil
01:26
rights movement and how the office got
01:29
its start in 1961 finally I'll talk
01:33
about Charlotte's changing ethic and
01:35
racial landscape today particularly with
01:37
regard to housing and geography part 1
01:43
deepening racial segregation today if
01:48
you go to Levine Museum of the new south
01:50
you can see the actual white and colored
01:53
signs from Charlotte city hall most of
01:56
us who are older Charlatans older
01:59
southerners remember these painful
02:02
symbols of segregation the
02:05
separate-but-equal world as it was
02:07
called it was always separate was never
02:09
equal and a few people though are
02:12
familiar with how
02:13
all of that got started the fact is that
02:17
racial segregation housing segregation
02:19
was not as pronounced in the late 19th
02:25
century as it was in my youth if you
02:30
look at Charlotte into the 1890s you can
02:33
see a surprising amount of mixture for
02:36
instance at the lower left of this slide
02:38
you'll see spirit square the white
02:41
Baptist Church built in the years right
02:44
after 1900 and at the top of the slide
02:46
with the blue dot is first United
02:49
Presbyterian Church a black church built
02:51
at a almost the same time it's cross
02:53
from Levine Museum of the new south in
02:56
my youth it would be inconceivable that
02:58
these two churches would be built so
03:00
close together my book sorting out the
03:03
New South City goes into this in more
03:05
detail if you're interested in in
03:07
checking out that history I apologize
03:10
for showing this slide this is a tough
03:12
part of our history but this is really
03:15
important because it was a time that was
03:19
a hinge in history for the south and
03:22
indeed for the United States in the
03:25
1890s there was an economic downturn an
03:29
honest-to-god depression much worse than
03:32
the recession that we've recently lived
03:34
through the 2008 recession and I don't
03:37
know about you but I've noticed that
03:40
politics has become kind of more ugly a
03:43
lot more name-calling a lot more
03:44
willingness to blame them
03:48
ever since 2008 well imagine what things
03:51
were like in the 1890s the beginning of
03:57
the tumult came as ordinary white folk
04:03
not the men of property and standing but
04:05
but ordinary working-class folks small
04:07
farmers joined with African Americans
04:11
who could still vote in North Carolina
04:14
well into the 1890s in something called
04:16
diffusion and they began using
04:19
government to help the little guy
04:22
it brought a backlash the men of
04:24
property and standing did not like that
04:27
how dare you take government out of the
04:29
hands of the men who own the property
04:30
and put it in the hands of those who are
04:32
ignorant and own no property said the
04:34
mayor of Charlotte it was time said the
04:37
Charlotte Observer which was very much
04:39
on the side of the men of property it
04:41
was there were their advertisers it is
04:44
time to end this rule of Negroes in the
04:47
lower-class of whites it's a statewide
04:50
movement to use white supremacy as a
04:54
wedge issue they called it the white
04:56
supremacy campaign and you can see here
05:00
that this cartoon and the Raleigh News
05:02
and Observer shows the monster Negro
05:06
rule having laid waste North Carolina
05:09
its foot is on our ballot box it's hands
05:12
are reaching out for our women and
05:14
children if you can convince people that
05:17
their economic interests are at stake
05:20
and that their safety of their women and
05:24
children is at stake then you got them
05:27
and indeed this campaign worked in 1900
05:31
North Carolina along with many other
05:33
southern states voted in a new
05:35
constitution with voter suppression poll
05:39
tax you had to pay to vote a literacy
05:41
test which sounds innocent but you had
05:44
to be able to read and interpret the
05:46
Constitution to the satisfaction of the
05:49
registrar voting participation nosedived
05:53
in North Carolina and all across the
05:55
south well that's the politics but what
06:00
happened with the hate that was stirred
06:02
up in the 1890s was the
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separate-but-equal Jim Crow system that
06:11
I grew up with 50 60 years later
06:15
separate black and white water fountains
06:17
1896 first time in charlotte there are
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separate black and white waiting rooms
06:23
at the Seaboard airline radient railroad
06:26
station you have to sit at the back of
06:28
the bus if you're african-american
06:30
that's a new state law in 1903 you know
06:33
you have to swear on a Bible in court
06:36
right after 1900 in the
06:38
charlotte-mecklenburg courts there are
06:40
separate
06:40
eight and colored Bibles and that kind
06:44
of separation carries through to all
06:48
aspects of society there are deed
06:52
restrictions that suddenly appear out in
06:55
the suburbs of Elizabeth and Dilworth
06:57
places like that that say you cannot buy
07:00
property here unless it is to be used by
07:02
members of the Caucasian race for a
07:04
house costing not less than X number of
07:07
dollars which is not just racial
07:09
segregation but also economic
07:12
segregation and you can see it indeed in
07:15
the older parts of the city as well a
07:18
dramatic change this is a piece of first
07:21
Ward in 1875 first award is the area
07:24
around where Levine Museum of the new
07:26
south is Charlotte was big enough to be
07:29
split into four election districts four
07:31
Ward's and I've just picked one at
07:34
random here is where african-americans
07:38
and others lived in 1875 it was very
07:41
much as you saw with those churches
07:44
intermingled that's 1875 here is the
07:48
same part of first Ward in 1910 ten
07:51
years after the white supremacy campaign
07:55
before and after segregation did not
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just happen
08:00
segregation happened at a particular
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time of fear economic hardship and it
08:07
happened through decisions that were not
08:11
planned overall but were very
08:13
intentional government decisions private
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decisions that split us apart
08:23
you can see that split in our landscape
08:25
if you know how to look for it if you've
08:27
been out to Noda the beautiful little
08:29
downtown that's now art galleries and
08:31
such across from heist brewery the old
08:34
Highland Park number three mill 1903
08:38
when that was built there was a downtown
08:40
minister who said just at this point in
08:43
the development of the mill people those
08:47
white working-class folks who'd voted
08:48
the wrong way in the 1890s just at this
08:52
point in the development of the mill
08:53
people perhaps it is better to let them
08:56
have their own churches and schools and
08:58
stores rather than mix promiscuously
09:01
with the better class segregation
09:05
economic very intentional
09:08
african-american neighborhoods pop into
09:11
focus at this point the most impressive
09:14
of them was second Ward the Brooklyn
09:17
neighborhood where the government center
09:19
is today there's JT Williams one of the
09:22
last African American elected officials
09:24
until our era he would went on to be the
09:28
u.s. top diplomat to Sierra Leone in
09:31
West Africa that's his house at the
09:33
lower left his church in the center
09:35
actually still stands that's a Grace AME
09:38
Zion Church and also the office building
09:40
he helped build there was the first
09:43
black public library in North Carolina
09:46
the second Ward High School a complete
09:49
city within a city that's why they
09:51
called it Brooklyn it was a lot like the
09:54
community of Brooklyn in New York which
09:56
had become a city within a city in the
09:58
1890s well-to-do folks pulled away from
10:03
the city as well
10:05
Meyers Park 1911 beautiful greenways
10:09
curving streets gates at the front a
10:12
couple of those gates still exist was
10:15
where the men and property a property
10:16
and standing lived and have you ever
10:21
been lost in Myers Park I can't prove it
10:25
but I think that's intentional it's a
10:27
way of separating our residences from
10:31
the residences of the rest of the city
10:34
so that kind of separation in some
10:37
that began to come into being in the
10:39
first few years of the 20th century and
10:42
then accelerated in the 1930s and 40s
10:45
and 50s and indeed in the 1960s federal
10:50
government helped with that
10:51
inadvertently 1930s the depression was
10:56
on the mortgage market froze just like
10:59
it did in 2008 lenders just wouldn't
11:02
lend they were scared and so in the 30s
11:05
the federal government sent mappers
11:08
around to local communities talk with
11:11
the men of property and standing say
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where the good neighborhoods are create
11:16
uniform maps that way somebody say in
11:19
Boston has money to lend they'll feel
11:21
confident lending in Charlotte or
11:23
Youngstown or wherever by asking the men
11:28
of property and standing where the good
11:29
neighborhoods were of course they picked
11:31
out their neighborhoods you can see the
11:33
green neighborhoods of Eastover and
11:35
Myers Park at the lower right Dilworth
11:38
Center right the country-club Berrien
11:41
Plaza Midwood in the upper right if you
11:44
drew a red line around a neighborhood it
11:47
meant that banks would be foolish to
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lend there you really don't want to make
11:53
home loans in a red lined neighborhood
11:56
now if you think about that that's a
11:59
self-fulfilling prophecy because
12:02
african-american neighborhoods even
12:04
mixed-race neighborhoods over time
12:06
become more and more of the province of
12:09
absentee landlords very hard to buy your
12:12
own home to invest in your neighborhood
12:15
in that way if you don't have help from
12:17
the bank and it got worse in the 1930s
12:23
the Federal Housing Administration got
12:24
started again a great program they
12:27
helped banks make long-term mortgages fa
12:30
mortgages VA mortgages Veterans
12:32
Administration mortgages but the new FHA
12:36
did not want to land in neighborhoods
12:38
that were going to go bad and so they
12:41
hired a sociologist in Chicago he went
12:43
around and talked to the men of property
12:44
and standing in Chicago and he said you
12:47
know what makes a good neighborhood and
12:48
they
12:48
they talked about ethnic groups the most
12:52
favorable come first in the list those
12:53
exerting the most detrimental effect
12:55
appear last this is the FHA underwriting
12:59
manual this is a federal document best
13:03
groups English Germans Scots Irish
13:05
Scandinavians second north Italians
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third Bohemians or czechoslovakians
13:10
those are my people maybe I should be
13:13
relieved to be third
13:16
I think I'm angry to be third fourth
13:18
poles fifth Lithuanian sixth Greeks
13:21
seventh Russian Jews of the lower class
13:23
eight South Italians nine Negros ten
13:28
Mexicans today I think that inspires a
13:34
touch of horror in us but that was a
13:37
federal policy and it gets worse in the
13:43
1950s and 60s there was federal money to
13:46
tear down blighted neighborhoods one of
13:49
the key metrics was whether a
13:51
neighborhood had a lot of run-down
13:52
absentee landlord housing well guess
13:56
what neighborhoods had those and in
13:59
reality usually it was the
14:01
african-american neighborhood closest to
14:03
downtown that was demolished in
14:05
Charlotte
14:06
Brooklyn came down during the 1960's
14:09
more than a thousand families displaced
14:11
more than 200 black businesses closed
14:14
never reopened more than a dozen
14:15
churches kicked out of Brooklyn so all
14:20
of that that deepening segregation
14:23
brings us to the time of the civil
14:25
rights movement the civil rights
14:27
movement had been going on for a long
14:30
time before white America really became
14:33
aware of it in the late 1950s and early
14:35
1960s it had been going on for a long
14:38
time in Charlotte 1951 a lawyer named
14:42
Thomas white worked with his neighbors
14:46
to file a lawsuit attempting to
14:49
desegregate revolution' Park on the
14:52
southwest side of the city the golf
14:54
course in particular was the only
14:57
municipal golf course there were African
15:00
American professionals who liked to play
15:02
golf
15:02
they couldn't play 1951 they filed a
15:06
lawsuit if that lawsuit had been decided
15:10
quickly we probably would be reading
15:12
about public park desegregation in
15:14
Charlotte in all of the history books
15:17
the same way that we read about public
15:20
bus desegregation by Rosa Parks a few
15:22
years later in all the history books but
15:25
instead it took many years for that suit
15:28
to be decided but revolution Park was
15:31
desegregated similarly in 1954 Thomas
15:35
whites and African American dentist
15:37
Reginald Hawkins and some friends went
15:40
out to the brand new airport terminal
15:43
just open July of 1954 federal project
15:49
with federal money the federal world was
15:52
supposed to be desegregated interstate
15:54
transport was supposed to be
15:56
desegregated but the dining room at the
16:00
airport was not and they went they sat
16:04
in filed a court case in 1956 long
16:10
before the sit-in movement
16:12
Charlotte's Airport desegregated so
16:16
people here were working trying to find
16:18
some way to change this this world of
16:21
inequality 1957
16:25
Reginald Hawkins Thomas white Kelly
16:28
Alexander from the n-double-a-cp
16:30
chapter in Charlotte work with Herbert's
16:33
pas the superintendent of schools to win
16:38
admission of four black students to
16:42
white schools in Charlotte
16:45
this was belated the Supreme Court in
16:48
1954 had said in the brown decision the
16:52
desegregation had to happen but they
16:55
said with all deliberate speed what does
16:57
that mean well it took a long time 1957
17:02
for students went to black black
17:05
students went to white schools here is
17:08
the most famous of them dorothy counts
17:10
who went to Harding High School was met
17:12
by a mob not a violent mob but
17:15
ugly mop these photos were on the front
17:17
pages of newspapers all across the
17:19
United States it really though wasn't
17:24
until 1960 when this became a mass
17:28
movement and the folks that did that
17:30
were not part of the african-american
17:33
power structure as people like dr.
17:36
Hawkins and attorney White's had been
17:38
they were students and you know this
17:41
story
17:41
students at A&T University in Greensboro
17:44
including Franklin McCain later a
17:46
longtime Charlotte resident began the
17:49
sit-in movement in early February it
17:51
spread to historically black colleges
17:53
around North Carolina and then around
17:55
the South hit Charlotte about a week
17:58
later and that student movement here you
18:01
see folks sitting in in Charlotte took
18:05
months but it began to really bring a
18:09
change one of the people by the way who
18:13
led that is still around if you all have
18:15
not met Charles Jones spokesperson for
18:19
Charlotte's 1960 sit-ins he is a
18:22
wonderful resource and has the ability
18:25
to make you laugh to make you angry at
18:28
the injustice as the past and the
18:30
present and to make you cry at the
18:34
courage of those who fought so long and
18:38
so hard well out of that student
18:44
movement this sense that students were
18:47
rising up and they couldn't be
18:48
controlled came the mayor's friendly
18:52
Relations Committee Mayor James s Smith
18:56
February 1960 brought together older
19:01
cooler heads to work with the students
19:04
black as well as white and it was a
19:09
courageous thing to do for a southern
19:12
political leader to say we are not going
19:15
to use police dogs and fire hoses as
19:18
Bull Connor did in Birmingham a few
19:20
years later but we are going to talk and
19:24
that tradition of talking at that
19:27
moment that became Charlotte's legacy
19:31
going forward here is the actual memo
19:34
it's the UNC Charlotte archives in which
19:38
the committee has worked out the
19:40
desegregation of key lunch counters
19:43
downtown at Belk grants five-and-dime
19:46
store Ivy's department store crass
19:49
liggett's you can see that Sears isn't
19:51
quite sure at this moment and Woolworth
19:53
this is dated July 4th 1960 and indeed
19:57
Charlotte's lunch counters desegregated
20:00
at a time when many cities across the
20:03
South said no never and continued to
20:06
fight that itself would have been a good
20:10
thing if the mayor's friend relations
20:13
committee never did anything else but
20:16
then in 1961 mayor Stan Berkshire was
20:19
elected Stan Brookshire is the guy the
20:20
Berkshire freeway is named for and he
20:23
was a very much an activist mayor and he
20:27
looked at this committee and he said
20:30
let's make it a permanent thing he
20:32
renamed it the mayor's committee in the
20:35
mayor's Community Relations Committee in
20:37
1961 and expanded its scope don't just
20:41
deal with city in issues deal with
20:43
issues housing deal with issues of
20:45
Economic Opportunity make the
20:48
connections do the talking that we need
20:50
to begin to bring us together as a true
20:53
community just a few things that
20:58
happened in the next few years to give
21:01
you a sense and I'm not sure exactly how
21:04
the Community Relations Commission was a
21:06
committee was involved in these but I
21:09
know that the fact that people talk to
21:11
each other put Charlotte at the
21:13
forefront particularly in May of 1963
21:17
you know that May 20 is met that day the
21:21
day we celebrate our colonial freedom
21:23
well on May 20th 1963 dr. Reginald
21:27
Hawkins that African American dentist
21:29
led a march of Johnson C Smith students
21:32
down to City Hall and demanded the
21:35
segregation at upscale the end of
21:37
segregation at upscale restaurants
21:40
the lunch counters had desegregated but
21:42
then the white tablecloth restaurants
21:44
even cafeterias movie theaters we're
21:47
still segregated and Hawkins made a
21:50
stirring speech the time for tokenism is
21:54
over the kind of one by one token
21:58
desegregation that you saw with the
22:00
school so the time for tokenism is over
22:02
the time for gradualism is over we want
22:04
freedom and we want it now and a
22:08
remarkable thing happened Brookshire
22:11
listened it helped that that very month
22:14
was when Bull Connor in Birmingham had
22:17
the police dogs and fire hoses out was
22:20
on international television making the
22:24
South look like a police state
22:26
Brookshire said that's bad for business
22:29
Brooks forgot Chamber of Commerce
22:32
officials to invite African Americans to
22:35
lunch one or two at a time going to each
22:39
of those upscale restaurants they called
22:40
them in advance they talked with the
22:42
newspapers and said you don't want to
22:43
cover this until after it's happened and
22:45
it worked within a week most of the
22:51
upscale restaurants desegregated within
22:53
a few weeks the movie theaters
22:55
everything else desegregated was
22:58
mentioned in the New York Times the
23:00
folks at the Kennedy White House were
23:02
aware of it it was a year before this
23:05
became a national requirement through
23:08
the 1964 Civil Rights Act
23:10
at that moment Birmingham was vying with
23:14
Atlanta to be the leading city of the
23:17
new south today Charlotte is three times
23:21
the size of Birmingham it was a moment
23:24
at which Charlotte staked its destiny on
23:27
equality hasn't been perfect still
23:33
working on it but this was a key moment
23:38
Reginald Hawkins paid a price for that
23:40
so did Kelly Alexander they end up lacy
23:43
P chief Fred Alexander the first black
23:46
public elected public official in that
23:49
era and Julius chambers the civil rights
23:52
attorney
23:53
November 1965 in the dark of night four
23:56
houses
23:57
bombed no one ever found out who did it
24:01
but folks kept on here's a little thing
24:05
Elmwood Cemetery had still does an area
24:09
at the back called Pinewood cemetery one
24:12
was the white section one was the black
24:13
section there was a fence between
24:16
Elmwood and Pinewood what the dead white
24:19
people and the dead black people were
24:21
gonna do that they needed a fence
24:22
separating them no one has ever
24:24
explained to me but finally in January
24:27
of 1969 Fred Alexander got that fence
24:31
torn down part three Charlotte's
24:39
changing ethnic and racial landscape
24:41
today so that segregation that we saw
24:47
coming into place which ironically got
24:50
worse during the 1960s is the result of
24:52
the demolition of the Brooklyn
24:54
neighborhood left a city that resembles
24:58
many other American cities because
24:59
they've been through the same forces the
25:03
well-to-do sector here it's in the
25:06
southeast a predominantly
25:08
african-american sector on the opposite
25:10
side of town and some kind of in between
25:14
sectors South Boulevard the East Side
25:16
not particularly well-to-do but
25:19
originally white areas well a
25:23
fascinating thing has happened I'm gonna
25:25
focus here on East Charlotte because
25:27
that's where I live that's what I know
25:28
but it's going on elsewhere as well
25:31
those middling kind of areas as the US
25:36
Fair Housing Act took hold in 1968 as
25:39
the Community Reinvestment Act requires
25:40
that lenders not let red line that they
25:43
lend in all neighborhoods a Charlotte
25:48
the South Boulevard area other parts of
25:51
the city went from being nearly a
25:53
hundred percent white to being about 25
25:56
percent african-american which is
25:58
basically Charlotte they began to look
26:01
like Charlotte and in my part of town
26:04
there are black pockets and white
26:06
pockets but
26:07
overall it's been remarkably stable for
26:11
the last 35 40 years then in the 1990s
26:17
we began to experience a new kind of
26:20
newcomer wave for one thing a tremendous
26:25
increase in population if you don't take
26:28
any other one fact from this
26:30
presentation know that in 1990
26:34
Mecklenburg County had about half a
26:35
million people it just recently passed a
26:38
million doubling in size over 25 years
26:43
but a lot of those folks not a majority
26:47
but a significant new small number are
26:50
coming from other parts of the world and
26:53
this is a new thing for Charlotte
26:55
Charlotte had almost no immigrants for
26:58
most of its history and then suddenly in
27:01
the 1990s we were the fourth fastest
27:03
growing Latino city in the United States
27:06
since 2000 we've been the fastest
27:10
growing major Latino Metro in the US and
27:14
it's not just Latino folks folks are
27:17
coming from Mexico yep they're coming
27:18
from India they're coming from Vietnam
27:20
they're coming from El Salvador from
27:22
Korea from North Africa from the Middle
27:24
East and where are they going well
27:29
they're going to those old middling
27:32
areas as much as anywhere else to the
27:34
South Boulevard area Central Avenue to
27:36
the east side and they are not
27:39
segregating now that is hard to imagine
27:44
because when we think of ethnic America
27:47
we think of Chinatown so we think of
27:50
Little Italy's Charlotte doesn't have
27:53
one I've been told that Charlotte
27:56
doesn't have much international presence
27:58
does it because it doesn't have that but
28:02
what it does instead is it has these
28:05
suburban salad bowls the old suburbs 50s
28:10
60s 70s 80s are now inexpensive they're
28:14
affordable and people are mingling like
28:19
like
28:20
items in a salad you know you could
28:22
still see the lettuce the tomatoes the
28:24
onions anchovies whatever the dressing
28:28
but it's a new dish and you go out in
28:33
the east side of town and there's the
28:34
Cambodian video store next to the
28:36
Salvadoran deli
28:37
there's the Saigon Bistro next to the
28:39
Arab meat market there is the European
28:42
grocery from Bosnia with those amazing
28:45
sausage sandwiches and the Vietnamese
28:48
poolhall with the bond me submarine
28:51
sandwiches that kind of mixture is a new
28:56
frontier for Charlotte you can see it in
28:59
the the little shopping centers you can
29:02
see it in the mix of housing here we are
29:05
on Central Avenue at Rose Haven down
29:07
below some old apartments above some
29:10
duplexes and single-family homes and if
29:13
you drive by quickly you say oh well
29:15
this is the Mexican part of town and
29:17
indeed there's a Mexican grocery store
29:19
but in the same shopping center there's
29:22
also a pupusas joint from El Salvador
29:26
Pusa they don't have tacos in El
29:28
Salvador they have pupusas little
29:30
cornmeal pancakes stuff them with beans
29:33
with cheese with chopped pork mmm YUM so
29:37
two different cultures here in this one
29:40
shopping center actually three different
29:42
cultures because there's a Vietnamese
29:44
soup parlor actually for different
29:47
cultures cedar land folks from Syria
29:50
Lebanon Egypt even Morocco in five
29:55
different cultures Jamila's
29:57
international cuisine Jamila and her
30:00
friend Hamza came here from Somalia in
30:03
the upper right hand corner of Africa
30:07
their mosque is around the corner on
30:09
progress lane in in Somalia women can't
30:13
start a business nobody can start a
30:15
business a civil war is on but here is
30:18
the came as refugees they found that the
30:21
workers at the airport a lot of them
30:23
from North Africa wanted the food from
30:26
home and the taxi drivers who came back
30:28
and forth carrying that food many of
30:30
them from North Africa they wanted a
30:32
place for their noon day prayer
30:33
so they found cheap rent on Central
30:37
Avenue the open Jamila's international
30:40
restaurant now it's a restaurant in a
30:41
grocery store it's the American dream
30:44
and that kind of mixed neighborhood
30:50
that's evolving on Central Avenue that
30:53
kind of new entrepreneurial class we
30:57
talked about wanting to welcome and
30:59
entrepreneurs to Charlotte to make sure
31:01
a place for new businesses and new ideas
31:04
that's what you're seeing in those kind
31:07
of places it's instructive to look at a
31:11
map of where foreign-born folks reside
31:15
in Charlotte indeed South Boulevard and
31:18
Central Avenue are heavy areas but as
31:23
you can see from the pink areas on this
31:25
map international communities are all
31:28
throughout the city very different from
31:31
the patterns of black and white that I
31:33
grew up with so change is happening and
31:39
Community Relations is in the middle of
31:41
that we've become a city in which there
31:43
is no longer a white majority rest of
31:46
the United States will be catching up
31:47
with us very soon and none of this has
31:50
heard our desirability like I said we
31:53
just hit 1 million
31:54
I haven't slowed down a bit even with
31:57
the 2008 recession so as community
32:01
relations goes about its work know that
32:04
it comes from history that it's part of
32:08
that grassroots movement for true civil
32:12
rights in a segregated south and that
32:16
Charlotte Mecklenburg Community
32:18
Relations is making history by helping
32:22
us talk together it's drawing on an
32:24
important heritage but it's a heritage
32:27
that is very important today as we are
32:31
becoming a more and more diverse
32:33
Charlotte

 

 

 


Our Mission

Community Relations empowers, collaborates, engages and promotes opportunities to create positive outcomes.


Our Vision

Be recognized as a global model in building community harmony by advocating for diversity, equity and access for all.


Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations is the human relations agency for the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The department seeks to enhance community harmony and promote awareness of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s growing multiculturalism by facilitating community dialogue and meetings and coordinating resident and organizational coalitions to address community issues and concerns. Community Relations accomplishes this mission by:

  • Addressing discrimination through enforcement of the city’s Fair Housing Ordinance.

  • Collaborating with CMPD to improve police community relations.

  • Serving on host committees for cultural events (MLK Celebration) Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Citywide Birthday Celebration.

  • Serving as mediators during conflict resolution.

  • Ensuring Americans with Disability Act Title I and II compliance citywide.


 

Transcript Dr. Tom Hanson

Dr. Tom Hanson

00:00 Charlotte-Mecklenburg community 00:02 relations its place in charlotte history 00:04 then and now I'm Tom Hanson I'm 00:07 community historian and you can find 00:10 more of my work at WWDC South org I 00:14 retired recently from Levine Museum of 00:16 the new south where I was the staff 00:19 historian for many years I've also 00:20 worked with Historic Landmarks 00:22 Commission in Charlotte 00:24 Mecklenburg Community Relations is the 00:26 human relations agency for the City of 00:28 Charlotte and Mecklenburg County the 00:30 department seeks to enhance community 00:32 harmony and promote awareness of 00:33 Charlotte Mecklenburg growing 00:35 multiculturalism by facilitating 00:37 community dialogue addressing 00:39 discrimination through enforcement of 00:41 the city's fair housing ordinance 00:42 collaborating with the police 00:44 serving as mediators in conflict 00:46 resolution and ensuring Americans with 00:49 Disability Act compliance Charlotte 00:52 Mecklenburg community relations has its 00:54 roots in the civil rights movement in 00:56 Charlotte and what I'd like to do today 00:59 is give a sense of how the organization 01:03 came to be but also to place it in its 01:07 wider context I'm going to start out by 01:10 talking about the era of deepening 01:12 segregation from the 1900s into the 01:16 1960s that sets the stage for the civil 01:20 rights movement in general and 01:21 specifically for the Community Relations 01:23 office then I'll talk about that civil 01:26 rights movement and how the office got 01:29 its start in 1961 finally I'll talk 01:33 about Charlotte's changing ethic and 01:35 racial landscape today particularly with 01:37 regard to housing and geography part 1 01:43 deepening racial segregation today if 01:48 you go to Levine Museum of the new south 01:50 you can see the actual white and colored 01:53 signs from Charlotte city hall most of 01:56 us who are older Charlatans older 01:59 southerners remember these painful 02:02 symbols of segregation the 02:05 separate-but-equal world as it was 02:07 called it was always separate was never 02:09 equal and a few people though are 02:12 familiar with how 02:13 all of that got started the fact is that 02:17 racial segregation housing segregation 02:19 was not as pronounced in the late 19th 02:25 century as it was in my youth if you 02:30 look at Charlotte into the 1890s you can 02:33 see a surprising amount of mixture for 02:36 instance at the lower left of this slide 02:38 you'll see spirit square the white 02:41 Baptist Church built in the years right 02:44 after 1900 and at the top of the slide 02:46 with the blue dot is first United 02:49 Presbyterian Church a black church built 02:51 at a almost the same time it's cross 02:53 from Levine Museum of the new south in 02:56 my youth it would be inconceivable that 02:58 these two churches would be built so 03:00 close together my book sorting out the 03:03 New South City goes into this in more 03:05 detail if you're interested in in 03:07 checking out that history I apologize 03:10 for showing this slide this is a tough 03:12 part of our history but this is really 03:15 important because it was a time that was 03:19 a hinge in history for the south and 03:22 indeed for the United States in the 03:25 1890s there was an economic downturn an 03:29 honest-to-god depression much worse than 03:32 the recession that we've recently lived 03:34 through the 2008 recession and I don't 03:37 know about you but I've noticed that 03:40 politics has become kind of more ugly a 03:43 lot more name-calling a lot more 03:44 willingness to blame them 03:48 ever since 2008 well imagine what things 03:51 were like in the 1890s the beginning of 03:57 the tumult came as ordinary white folk 04:03 not the men of property and standing but 04:05 but ordinary working-class folks small 04:07 farmers joined with African Americans 04:11 who could still vote in North Carolina 04:14 well into the 1890s in something called 04:16 diffusion and they began using 04:19 government to help the little guy 04:22 it brought a backlash the men of 04:24 property and standing did not like that 04:27 how dare you take government out of the 04:29 hands of the men who own the property 04:30 and put it in the hands of those who are 04:32 ignorant and own no property said the 04:34 mayor of Charlotte it was time said the 04:37 Charlotte Observer which was very much 04:39 on the side of the men of property it 04:41 was there were their advertisers it is 04:44 time to end this rule of Negroes in the 04:47 lower-class of whites it's a statewide 04:50 movement to use white supremacy as a 04:54 wedge issue they called it the white 04:56 supremacy campaign and you can see here 05:00 that this cartoon and the Raleigh News 05:02 and Observer shows the monster Negro 05:06 rule having laid waste North Carolina 05:09 its foot is on our ballot box it's hands 05:12 are reaching out for our women and 05:14 children if you can convince people that 05:17 their economic interests are at stake 05:20 and that their safety of their women and 05:24 children is at stake then you got them 05:27 and indeed this campaign worked in 1900 05:31 North Carolina along with many other 05:33 southern states voted in a new 05:35 constitution with voter suppression poll 05:39 tax you had to pay to vote a literacy 05:41 test which sounds innocent but you had 05:44 to be able to read and interpret the 05:46 Constitution to the satisfaction of the 05:49 registrar voting participation nosedived 05:53 in North Carolina and all across the 05:55 south well that's the politics but what 06:00 happened with the hate that was stirred 06:02 up in the 1890s was the 06:07 separate-but-equal Jim Crow system that 06:11 I grew up with 50 60 years later 06:15 separate black and white water fountains 06:17 1896 first time in charlotte there are 06:20 separate black and white waiting rooms 06:23 at the Seaboard airline radiant railroad 06:26 station you have to sit at the back of 06:28 the bus if you're African American 06:30 that's a new state law in 1903 you know 06:33 you have to swear on a Bible in court 06:36 right after 1900 in the 06:38 charlotte-Mecklenburg courts there are 06:40 separate 06:40 eight and colored Bibles and that kind 06:44 of separation carries through to all 06:48 aspects of society there are deed 06:52 restrictions that suddenly appear out in 06:55 the suburbs of Elizabeth and Dilworth 06:57 places like that that say you cannot buy 07:00 property here unless it is to be used by 07:02 members of the Caucasian race for a 07:04 house costing not less than X number of 07:07 dollars which is not just racial 07:09 segregation but also economic 07:12 segregation and you can see it indeed in 07:15 the older parts of the city as well a 07:18 dramatic change this is a piece of first 07:21 Ward in 1875 first award is the area 07:24 around where Levine Museum of the new 07:26 south is Charlotte was big enough to be 07:29 split into four election districts four 07:31 Ward's and I've just picked one at 07:34 random here is where African Americans 07:38 and others lived in 1875 it was very 07:41 much as you saw with those churches 07:44 intermingled that's 1875 here is the 07:48 same part of first Ward in 1910 ten 07:51 years after the white supremacy campaign 07:55 before and after segregation did not 08:00 just happen 08:00 segregation happened at a particular 08:02 time of fear economic hardship and it 08:07 happened through decisions that were not 08:11 planned overall but were very 08:13 intentional government decisions private 08:16 decisions that split us apart 08:23 you can see that split in our landscape 08:25 if you know how to look for it if you've 08:27 been out to Noda the beautiful little 08:29 downtown that's now art galleries and 08:31 such across from heist brewery the old 08:34 Highland Park number three mill 1903 08:38 when that was built there was a downtown 08:40 minister who said just at this point in 08:43 the development of the mill people those 08:47 white working-class folks who'd voted 08:48 the wrong way in the 1890s just at this 08:52 point in the development of the mill 08:53 people perhaps it is better to let them 08:56 have their own churches and schools and 08:58 stores rather than mix promiscuously 09:01 with the better class segregation 09:05 economic very intentional 09:08 African American neighborhoods pop into 09:11 focus at this point the most impressive 09:14 of them was second Ward the Brooklyn 09:17 neighborhood where the government center 09:19 is today there's JT Williams one of the 09:22 last African American elected officials 09:24 until our era he would went on to be the 09:28 u.s. top diplomat to Sierra Leone in 09:31 West Africa that's his house at the 09:33 lower left his church in the center 09:35 actually still stands that's a Grace AME 09:38 Zion Church and also the office building 09:40 he helped build there was the first 09:43 black public library in North Carolina 09:46 the second Ward High School a complete 09:49 city within a city that's why they 09:51 called it Brooklyn it was a lot like the 09:54 community of Brooklyn in New York which 09:56 had become a city within a city in the 09:58 1890s well-to-do folks pulled away from 10:03 the city as well 10:05 Meyers Park 1911 beautiful greenways 10:09 curving streets gates at the front a 10:12 couple of those gates still exist was 10:15 where the men and property a property 10:16 and standing lived and have you ever 10:21 been lost in Myers Park I can't prove it 10:25 but I think that's intentional it's a 10:27 way of separating our residences from 10:31 the residences of the rest of the city 10:34 so that kind of separation in some 10:37 that began to come into being in the 10:39 first few years of the 20th century and 10:42 then accelerated in the 1930s and 40s 10:45 and 50s and indeed in the 1960s federal 10:50 government helped with that 10:51 inadvertently 1930s the depression was 10:56 on the mortgage market froze just like 10:59 it did in 2008 lenders just wouldn't 11:02 lend they were scared and so in the 30s 11:05 the federal government sent mappers 11:08 around to local communities talk with 11:11 the men of property and standing say 11:13 where the good neighborhoods are create 11:16 uniform maps that way somebody say in 11:19 Boston has money to lend they'll feel 11:21 confident lending in Charlotte or 11:23 Youngstown or wherever by asking the men 11:28 of property and standing where the good 11:29 neighborhoods were of course they picked 11:31 out their neighborhoods you can see the 11:33 green neighborhoods of Eastover and 11:35 Myers Park at the lower right Dilworth 11:38 Center right the country-club Berrien 11:41 Plaza Midwood in the upper right if you 11:44 drew a red line around a neighborhood it 11:47 meant that banks would be foolish to 11:50 lend there you really don't want to make 11:53 home loans in a red lined neighborhood 11:56 now if you think about that that's a 11:59 self-fulfilling prophecy because 12:02 African American neighborhoods even 12:04 mixed-race neighborhoods over time 12:06 become more and more of the province of 12:09 absentee landlords very hard to buy your 12:12 own home to invest in your neighborhood 12:15 in that way if you don't have help from 12:17 the bank and it got worse in the 1930s 12:23 the Federal Housing Administration got 12:24 started again a great program they 12:27 helped banks make long-term mortgages fa 12:30 mortgages VA mortgages Veterans 12:32 Administration mortgages but the new FHA 12:36 did not want to land in neighborhoods 12:38 that were going to go bad and so they 12:41 hired a sociologist in Chicago he went 12:43 around and talked to the men of property 12:44 and standing in Chicago and he said you 12:47 know what makes a good neighborhood and 12:48 they 12:48 they talked about ethnic groups the most 12:52 favorable come first in the list those 12:53 exerting the most detrimental effect 12:55 appear last this is the FHA underwriting 12:59 manual this is a federal document best 13:03 groups English Germans Scots Irish 13:05 Scandinavians second north Italians 13:08 third Bohemians or Czechoslovakians 13:10 those are my people maybe I should be 13:13 relieved to be third 13:16 I think I'm angry to be third fourth 13:18 poles fifth Lithuanian sixth Greeks 13:21 seventh Russian Jews of the lower class 13:23 eight South Italians nine Negros ten 13:28 Mexicans today I think that inspires a 13:34 touch of horror in us but that was a 13:37 federal policy and it gets worse in the 13:43 1950s and 60s there was federal money to 13:46 tear down blighted neighborhoods one of 13:49 the key metrics was whether a 13:51 neighborhood had a lot of run-down 13:52 absentee landlord housing well guess 13:56 what neighborhoods had those and in 13:59 reality usually it was the 14:01 African American neighborhood closest to 14:03 downtown that was demolished in 14:05 Charlotte 14:06 Brooklyn came down during the 1960's 14:09 more than a thousand families displaced 14:11 more than 200 black businesses closed 14:14 never reopened more than a dozen 14:15 churches kicked out of Brooklyn so all 14:20 of that that deepening segregation 14:23 brings us to the time of the civil 14:25 rights movement the civil rights 14:27 movement had been going on for a long 14:30 time before white America really became 14:33 aware of it in the late 1950s and early 14:35 1960s it had been going on for a long 14:38 time in Charlotte 1951 a lawyer named 14:42 Thomas white worked with his neighbors 14:46 to file a lawsuit attempting to 14:49 desegregate revolution' Park on the 14:52 southwest side of the city the golf 14:54 course in particular was the only 14:57 municipal golf course there were African 15:00 American professionals who liked to play 15:02 golf 15:02 they couldn't play 1951 they filed a 15:06 lawsuit if that lawsuit had been decided 15:10 quickly we probably would be reading 15:12 about public park desegregation in 15:14 Charlotte in all of the history books 15:17 the same way that we read about public 15:20 bus desegregation by Rosa Parks a few 15:22 years later in all the history books but 15:25 instead it took many years for that suit 15:28 to be decided but revolution Park was 15:31 desegregated similarly in 1954 Thomas 15:35 whites and African American dentist 15:37 Reginald Hawkins and some friends went 15:40 out to the brand new airport terminal 15:43 just open July of 1954 federal project 15:49 with federal money the federal world was 15:52 supposed to be desegregated interstate 15:54 transport was supposed to be 15:56 desegregated but the dining room at the 16:00 airport was not and they went they sat 16:04 in filed a court case in 1956 long 16:10 before the sit-in movement 16:12 Charlotte's Airport desegregated so 16:16 people here were working trying to find 16:18 some way to change this this world of 16:21 inequality 1957 16:25 Reginald Hawkins Thomas white Kelly 16:28 Alexander from the n-double-a-cp 16:30 chapter in Charlotte work with Herbert's 16:33 pas the superintendent of schools to win 16:38 admission of four black students to 16:42 white schools in Charlotte 16:45 this was belated the Supreme Court in 16:48 1954 had said in the brown decision the 16:52 desegregation had to happen but they 16:55 said with all deliberate speed what does 16:57 that mean well it took a long time 1957 17:02 for students went to black 17:05 students went to white schools here is 17:08 the most famous of them dorothy counts 17:10 who went to Harding High School was met 17:12 by a mob not a violent mob but 17:15 ugly mop these photos were on the front 17:17 pages of newspapers all across the 17:19 United States it really though wasn't 17:24 until 1960 when this became a mass 17:28 movement and the folks that did that 17:30 were not part of the African American 17:33 power structure as people like dr. 17:36 Hawkins and attorney White's had been 17:38 they were students and you know this 17:41 story 17:41 students at A&T University in Greensboro 17:44 including Franklin McCain later a 17:46 longtime Charlotte resident began the 17:49 sit-in movement in early February it 17:51 spread to historically black colleges 17:53 around North Carolina and then around 17:55 the South hit Charlotte about a week 17:58 later and that student movement here you 18:01 see folks sitting in in Charlotte took 18:05 months but it began to really bring a 18:09 change one of the people by the way who 18:13 led that is still around if you all have 18:15 not met Charles Jones spokesperson for 18:19 Charlotte's 1960 sit-ins he is a 18:22 wonderful resource and has the ability 18:25 to make you laugh to make you angry at 18:28 the injustice as the past and the 18:30 present and to make you cry at the 18:34 courage of those who fought so long and 18:38 so hard well out of that student 18:44 movement this sense that students were 18:47 rising up and they couldn't be 18:48 controlled came the mayor's friendly 18:52 Relations Committee Mayor James s Smith 18:56 February 1960 brought together older 19:01 cooler heads to work with the students 19:04 black as well as white and it was a 19:09 courageous thing to do for a southern 19:12 political leader to say we are not going 19:15 to use police dogs and fire hoses as 19:18 Bull Connor did in Birmingham a few 19:20 years later but we are going to talk and 19:24 that tradition of talking at that 19:27 moment that became Charlotte's legacy 19:31 going forward here is the actual memo 19:34 it's the UNC Charlotte archives in which 19:38 the committee has worked out the 19:40 desegregation of key lunch counters 19:43 downtown at Belk grants five-and-dime 19:46 store Ivy's department store crass 19:49 Liggett's you can see that Sears isn't 19:51 quite sure at this moment and Woolworth 19:53 this is dated July 4th 1960 and indeed 19:57 Charlotte's lunch counters desegregated 20:00 at a time when many cities across the 20:03 South said no never and continued to 20:06 fight that itself would have been a good 20:10 thing if the mayor's friend relations 20:13 committee never did anything else but 20:16 then in 1961 mayor Stan Berkshire was 20:19 elected Stan Brookshire is the guy the 20:20 Berkshire freeway is named for and he 20:23 was a very much an activist mayor and he 20:27 looked at this committee and he said 20:30 let's make it a permanent thing he 20:32 renamed it the mayor's committee in the 20:35 mayor's Community Relations Committee in 20:37 1961 and expanded its scope don't just 20:41 deal with city in issues deal with 20:43 issues housing deal with issues of 20:45 Economic Opportunity make the 20:48 connections do the talking that we need 20:50 to begin to bring us together as a true 20:53 community just a few things that 20:58 happened in the next few years to give 21:01 you a sense and I'm not sure exactly how 21:04 the Community Relations Commission was a 21:06 committee was involved in these but I 21:09 know that the fact that people talk to 21:11 each other put Charlotte at the 21:13 forefront particularly in May of 1963 21:17 you know that May 20 is met that day the 21:21 day we celebrate our colonial freedom 21:23 well on May 20th 1963 dr. Reginald 21:27 Hawkins that African American dentist 21:29 led a march of Johnson C Smith students 21:32 down to City Hall and demanded the 21:35 segregation at upscale the end of 21:37 segregation at upscale restaurants 21:40 the lunch counters had desegregated but 21:42 then the white tablecloth restaurants 21:44 even cafeterias movie theaters we're 21:47 still segregated and Hawkins made a 21:50 stirring speech the time for tokenism is 21:54 over the kind of one by one token 21:58 desegregation that you saw with the 22:00 school so the time for tokenism is over 22:02 the time for gradualism is over we want 22:04 freedom and we want it now and a 22:08 remarkable thing happened Brookshire 22:11 listened it helped that that very month 22:14 was when Bull Connor in Birmingham had 22:17 the police dogs and fire hoses out was 22:20 on international television making the 22:24 South look like a police state 22:26 Brookshire said that's bad for business 22:29 Brooks forgot Chamber of Commerce 22:32 officials to invite African Americans to 22:35 lunch one or two at a time going to each 22:39 of those upscale restaurants they called 22:40 them in advance they talked with the 22:42 newspapers and said you don't want to 22:43 cover this until after it's happened and 22:45 it worked within a week most of the 22:51 upscale restaurants desegregated within 22:53 a few weeks the movie theaters 22:55 everything else desegregated was 22:58 mentioned in the New York Times the 23:00 folks at the Kennedy White House were 23:02 aware of it it was a year before this 23:05 became a national requirement through 23:08 the 1964 Civil Rights Act 23:10 at that moment Birmingham was vying with 23:14 Atlanta to be the leading city of the 23:17 new south today Charlotte is three times 23:21 the size of Birmingham it was a moment 23:24 at which Charlotte staked its destiny on 23:27 equality hasn't been perfect still 23:33 working on it but this was a key moment 23:38 Reginald Hawkins paid a price for that 23:40 so did Kelly Alexander they end up lacy 23:43 P chief Fred Alexander the first black 23:46 public elected public official in that 23:49 era and Julius chambers the civil rights 23:52 attorney 23:53 November 1965 in the dark of night four 23:56 houses 23:57 bombed no one ever found out who did it 24:01 but folks kept on here's a little thing 24:05 Elmwood Cemetery had still does an area 24:09 at the back called Pinewood cemetery one 24:12 was the white section one was the black 24:13 section there was a fence between 24:16 Elmwood and Pinewood what the dead white 24:19 people and the dead black people were 24:21 gonna do that they needed a fence 24:22 separating them no one has ever 24:24 explained to me but finally in January 24:27 of 1969 Fred Alexander got that fence 24:31 torn down part three Charlotte's 24:39 changing ethnic and racial landscape 24:41 today so that segregation that we saw 24:47 coming into place which ironically got 24:50 worse during the 1960s is the result of 24:52 the demolition of the Brooklyn 24:54 neighborhood left a city that resembles 24:58 many other American cities because 24:59 they've been through the same forces the 25:03 well-to-do sector here it's in the 25:06 southeast a predominantly 25:08 African American sector on the opposite 25:10 side of town and some kind of in between 25:14 sectors South Boulevard the East Side 25:16 not particularly well-to-do but 25:19 originally white areas well a 25:23 fascinating thing has happened I'm going to 25:25 focus here on East Charlotte because 25:27 that's where I live that's what I know 25:28 but it's going on elsewhere as well 25:31 those middling kind of areas as the US 25:36 Fair Housing Act took hold in 1968 as 25:39 the Community Reinvestment Act requires 25:40 that lenders not let red line that they 25:43 lend in all neighborhoods a Charlotte 25:48 the South Boulevard area other parts of 25:51 the city went from being nearly a 25:53 hundred percent white to being about 25 25:56 percent African American which is 25:58 basically Charlotte they began to look 26:01 like Charlotte and in my part of town 26:04 there are black pockets and white 26:06 pockets but 26:07 overall it's been remarkably stable for 26:11 the last 35 40 years then in the 1990s 26:17 we began to experience a new kind of 26:20 newcomer wave for one thing a tremendous 26:25 increase in population if you don't take 26:28 any other one fact from this 26:30 presentation know that in 1990 26:34 Mecklenburg County had about half a 26:35 million people it just recently passed a 26:38 million doubling in size over 25 years 26:43 but a lot of those folks not a majority 26:47 but a significant new small number are 26:50 coming from other parts of the world and 26:53 this is a new thing for Charlotte 26:55 Charlotte had almost no immigrants for 26:58 most of its history and then suddenly in 27:01 the 1990s we were the fourth fastest 27:03 growing Latino city in the United States 27:06 since 2000 we've been the fastest 27:10 growing major Latino Metro in the US and 27:14 it's not just Latino folks are 27:17 coming from Mexico yep they're coming 27:18 from India they're coming from Vietnam 27:20 they're coming from El Salvador from 27:22 Korea from North Africa from the Middle 27:24 East and where are they going well 27:29 they're going to those old middling 27:32 areas as much as anywhere else to the 27:34 South Boulevard area Central Avenue to 27:36 the east side and they are not 27:39 segregating now that is hard to imagine 27:44 because when we think of ethnic America 27:47 we think of Chinatown so we think of 27:50 Little Italy's Charlotte doesn't have 27:53 one I've been told that Charlotte 27:56 doesn't have much international presence 27:58 does it because it doesn't have that but 28:02 what it does instead is it has these 28:05 suburban salad bowls the old suburbs 50s 28:10 60s 70s 80s are now inexpensive they're 28:14 affordable and people are mingling like 28:19 like 28:20 items in a salad you know you could 28:22 still see the lettuce the tomatoes the 28:24 onions anchovies whatever the dressing 28:28 but it's a new dish and you go out in 28:33 the east side of town and there's the 28:34 Cambodian video store next to the 28:36 Salvadoran deli 28:37 there's the Saigon Bistro next to the 28:39 Arab meat market there is the European 28:42 grocery from Bosnia with those amazing 28:45 sausage sandwiches and the Vietnamese 28:48 poolhall with the bond me submarine 28:51 sandwiches that kind of mixture is a new 28:56 frontier for Charlotte you can see it in 28:59 the the little shopping centers you can 29:02 see it in the mix of housing here we are 29:05 on Central Avenue at Rose Haven down 29:07 below some old apartments above some 29:10 duplexes and single-family homes and if 29:13 you drive by quickly you say oh well 29:15 this is the Mexican part of town and 29:17 indeed there's a Mexican grocery store 29:19 but in the same shopping center there's 29:22 also a pupusas joint from El Salvador 29:26 Pusa they don't have tacos in El 29:28 Salvador they have pupusas little 29:30 cornmeal pancakes stuff them with beans 29:33 with cheese with chopped pork mmm YUM so 29:37 two different cultures here in this one 29:40 shopping center actually three different 29:42 cultures because there's a Vietnamese 29:44 soup parlor actually for different 29:47 cultures cedar land folks from Syria 29:50 Lebanon Egypt even Morocco in five 29:55 different cultures Jamila's 29:57 international cuisine Jamila and her 30:00 friend Hamza came here from Somalia in 30:03 the upper right hand corner of Africa 30:07 their mosque is around the corner on 30:09 progress lane in in Somalia women can't 30:13 start a business nobody can start a 30:15 business a civil war is on but here is 30:18 the came as refugees they found that the 30:21 workers at the airport a lot of them 30:23 from North Africa wanted the food from 30:26 home and the taxi drivers who came back 30:28 and forth carrying that food many of 30:30 them from North Africa they wanted a 30:32 place for their noon day prayer 30:33 so they found cheap rent on Central 30:37 Avenue the open Jamila's international 30:40 restaurant now it's a restaurant in a 30:41 grocery store it's the American dream 30:44 and that kind of mixed neighborhood 30:50 that's evolving on Central Avenue that 30:53 kind of new entrepreneurial class we 30:57 talked about wanting to welcome and 30:59 entrepreneurs to Charlotte to make sure 31:01 a place for new businesses and new ideas 31:04 that's what you're seeing in those kind 31:07 of places it's instructive to look at a 31:11 map of where foreign-born folks reside 31:15 in Charlotte indeed South Boulevard and 31:18 Central Avenue are heavy areas but as 31:23 you can see from the pink areas on this 31:25 map international communities are all 31:28 throughout the city very different from 31:31 the patterns of black and white that I 31:33 grew up with so change is happening and 31:39 Community Relations is in the middle of 31:41 that we've become a city in which there 31:43 is no longer a white majority rest of 31:46 the United States will be catching up 31:47 with us very soon and none of this has 31:50 heard our desirability like I said we 31:53 just hit 1 million 31:54 I haven't slowed down a bit even with 31:57 the 2008 recession so as community 32:01 relations goes about its work know that 32:04 it comes from history that it's part of 32:08 that grassroots movement for true civil 32:12 rights in a segregated south and that 32:16 Charlotte Mecklenburg Community 32:18 Relations is making history by helping 32:22 us talk together it's drawing on an 32:24 important heritage but it's a heritage 32:27 that is very important today as we are 32:31 becoming a more and more diverse 32:33 Charlotte