CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ More than 60 years after Charlotte's City Council voted for a federal urban renewal program that would destroy a prominent Black neighborhood uptown, the city's leader had a starkly different message.
There are two Charlottes, Mayor Vi Lyles said, and historic city policies have long "impeded the stability, the well-being and progress" of Black residents.
"I acknowledge the history and complexities of systemic racism and our city government's role in perpetuating those systems," she said.
Lyles read the apology during a meeting last week of the Charlotte City Council, the same body that voted in 1958 to raze the Brooklyn neighborhood through a program that displaced Black communities all over the country. Lyles said the current council has a "commitment to equity, social justice and our city's role to address our own systemic racism."
It comes as cities around the country are grappling with long-standing effects of racism, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic that has disproportionately hit Black Americans and other minority groups, and nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
Lyles outlined a commitment to several initiatives, including violence interruption, supporting Black businesses and entrepreneurs, and working with philanthropic, business and faith organizations "to address racism with collective and collaborative action."
Now, leaders of Restorative Justice CLT, the group that sought the city's apology, want to build on that acknowledgment and are seeking millions of dollars to invest in Black communities.
Members of the group call Lyles's apology an important first step.
"Some people didn't see an apology was needed," said Rev. Willie Keaton, chair of the restorative justice group and pastor at Mount Olive Presbyterian Church. "They didn't even see having this discussion was needed. But the more you hear the stories, you realize that there was an unresolved trauma there that needed to be addressed."
Still, Keaton said he'd like to see the city vote on a plan to put money into the areas that the mayor outlined.
"The apology is great, but the restitution has to be equal to the crime," he said. "There needs to be some restitution for the opportunity that was taken, the land that was taken, the businesses that were destroyed. Restorative justice is appropriate in this context, because what Charlotte has done to African Americans in many ways is criminal and immoral."
In an interview with The Charlotte Observer, Lyles did not outline any new programs or policies specific to the apology Monday, but pointed to existing efforts the city has around revitalizing neighborhoods and business development.
"Many of those actions are as a result of having what I think is one of the most diverse city councils in the history of our city," Lyles, who is Black, said. "And having these discussions around racial equity and social justice has been something we've been doing for at least two years."
When city officials approved bulldozers to enter Brooklyn, it was hailed as a necessary clean-up for Charlotte's future. An Observer headline described it as a "slum-clearance" program aimed at reducing blight.
But it was home to hundreds of Black families, businesses and churches. Prevented from living in other parts of the city by redlining and other discriminatory policies, Brooklyn residents built a thriving community in Second Ward that former neighbors remember as community-focused.
By the late 1960s, it was gone.
Cynthia Real, who called herself "a displaced child" after her family was forced to leave their Brooklyn home when she was 9 years old, said she was happy to hear the mayor apologized.
"I don't believe that you can move forward, or correct what has been done wrong unless you first acknowledge that it was wrong," Real, who still lives in Charlotte, said. But what's important now, she said, is what will be done next.
"How do you deal with the fallout (from its destruction)?" she asked. "Unfortunately, the adults that were most affected, most devastated and traumatized by those events are no longer with us, but their children and their children and their children are still experiencing the fallout."
Darryl Gaston grew up hearing stories from his cousins, godparents and neighbors who lived in Brooklyn. He said they described it as a socioeconomically diverse neighborhood, where there were working class people and professionals living side-by-side.
"The real sense of community that was demonstrated in the Brooklyn community was lost," Gaston said.
Gaston, a resident of Druid Hills, said he was glad Lyles apologized Monday night, but said harm has already been done.
"The damage has had and is having a rippling effect throughout the Black communities of Charlotte, North Carolina," he said. "And the only thing that I could think of that could relieve some of the hurt and pain that people experienced because of the Black removal/urban renewal, would be to provide some type of monetary reparations or to provide people with ... some land and houses."
Urban renewal was one of the key policies that contributed to the city's challenges with economic mobility, said historian Tom Hanchett. In a 2014 study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, Charlotte ranked last among 50 U.S. cities for upward mobility.
Hanchett said the apology is the first time he can recall that a direct, public apology has been made for the impacts urban renewal had on the Black community.
"I think what Mayor Lyles said in her public apology breaks new ground," he said. "I don't think that as a city, officials have spoken that clearly and that honestly about the way history has shaped the present."
The destruction of Black-owned businesses and property interrupted the accumulation of intergenerational wealth for Black residents in Charlotte, he said.
"When you take away an entire successful business district, the ripple effects of that go in ways that it's impossible to calculate," he said.
But some advocates are trying to quantify the damage the policy caused.
Lyles took a rare but not unprecedented step in acknowledging a city's active role in creating inequality.
Charlottesville, Virginia, leaders in 2013 apologized for razing a historically Black neighborhood through the same urban renewal program, according to local media. Some cities have gone further to attempt to right historical wrongs with financial investment.
Last month, Asheville's City Council passed a resolution for reparations, though the measure does not directly provide payments to individuals. Instead, the city will fund programs to increase racial equity, such as homeownership and business opportunities for Black residents.
In Charlotte, plans to redevelop 17 acres that were once part of Brooklyn spurred conversations about how to remedy the damage done by urban renewal, in a concept known as restorative justice.
Restorative Justice CLT called for changing the terms for the planned $683 million "Brooklyn Village" development with apartments, condos, a hotel and offices, as well as shops and restaurants and open space.
The group, started by local religious leaders and social justice advocates, called for more affordable housing and a guarantee of space set aside for former Brooklyn residents or their descendants.
The long-stalled development deal, which includes county-owned land, has not closed yet.
But conversations about how to change the Brooklyn development led to broader efforts for comprehensive restorative justice.
Restorative Justice CLT, which was started out of the Stan Greenspon Center for Peace and Social Justice, launched as its own organization in June with a $20,000 gift from Myers Park Baptist Church. Its 13-member board includes clergy members, NAACP Charlotte-Mecklenburg Branch President Corine Mack and former Brooklyn residents.
The organization hopes to raise a $20 million endowment to support community benefit projects in the areas of land and housing, business, criminal justice, mental health, education and faith communities.
Those priorities align with the entities destroyed by urban renewal, supporters say, as a way to invest in areas damaged when city leaders displaced 1,000 families, 216 Black-owned businesses, a dozen churches and Second Ward High School, the first for Black students in Charlotte.
The group is not yet taking donations for the endowment, but plans to launch a campaign in January and seek funding from individual donors, philanthropic organizations and the city and county. Keaton said it would be a public trust, managed by community members.
"We just want to make sure that it is authentic, and it is run by African Americans," he said.
Lyles said the city already puts money into a number of areas where that group is pushing for investment.
For example, she noted that the city's current budget earmarks $24.5 million for areas known as "opportunity corridors," which the city seeks to revitalize through funding business improvement, redevelopment and other initiatives.
She also said when the city is recruiting new businesses, they encourage them to hire people from the community, and to engage with Black residents. Customer service company Chime Solutions, for example, announced in June that it would add 250 jobs in Charlotte, and the company's CEO said the goal was to provide employment opportunities for people in under-served communities.
"First you have to acknowledge it," Lyles said of remedying urban renewal. "You have to believe and understand that it happened, and it caused harm. And then to look at whatever you're doing individually or systemically, through that lens of did I gain this opportunity because something was taken from people that were powerless, because they were Black."
