Activists sound off during city council public hearing on displacement of Black Pittsburghers

On Wed., May 4, Pittsburgh City Council held a special public hearing on the crisis of Black Pittsburghers leaving the city. The public was invited to sign up to register for public comments during the meeting after a petition from city residences requested the hearing before council.

With much conversation about issues facing Black Pittsburgh in an election year, the meeting was filled with impassioned speakers who had their ideas on what has caused this “exodus.” One of the big stats repeated over the afternoon was that from 2014 to 2018, over 7,000 Black people, 9% of the remaining population, left the city. Over 20 people were given a chance to speak during the meeting, though many of the people were not present or experiencing technical difficulties.

Pittsburgh City Paper is highlighting 10 quotes from the hearing:

“The city of Pittsburgh has mistreated Black people for more than the 50 years I've observed life here. One can mark the 1950s Negro Removal push out, conducted to usher in the first Renaissance, which warehoused Black people in locations so isolated and scattered that it destroyed the geographic, social, economic, and political heart of the African-American community.”
— Rick Adams

“Moving from Beaver County to Pittsburgh, I thought I was moving into an area of more opportunity. Well, what I, what I moved into was systemic racism. What I moved into was one blighted area after the other, because of affordability because of the systemic systems that caused me to have to work a hundred times as hard as anyone to just get out of one place and into another.”
— Kimberly Guerrero

Read more: https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/activists-sound-off-during-city-council-public-hearing-on-displacement-of-black-pittsburghers/Content?oid=19414455