ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 27, 1996 TAG: 9602270063
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WALTER S. CLAYTOR
THE ROANOKE Redevelopment and Housing Authority, on behalf of city officials, destroyed the blacks' neighborhoods, culture, businesses, jobs and means of supporting their families.
Can you now imagine how we feel? Or is everyone so insensitive to feelings that you have the temerity to plan, even to suggest, to build a new headquarters building for this agency on the most historic, internationally known site in Roanoke after the agency brought about so much destruction, fear, grief and chaos to this community?
Is this just a slap in the face - another way of making use of the land grab the city is known to be conducting - or is this a reward for a job well done, and one blacks will always know as a monument to arrogance?
A better approach for this agency would be to move it out of the city. This isn't a new request. It was made previously to then-City Manager Bern Ewert, and more recently was repeated to Mayor David Bowers and Councilwoman Linda Wyatt.
Since the agency's inception in the early '50s, no black family can or will be able to sleep in peace. This will be the case as long as this agency and/or its broad powers exist.
The question we all face now: Do you put in, replace and rebuild a relatively self-supporting black community, with all of its strong family ties that previously existed? Or will it be more jails, and more moral and physical destruction for everyone, and things I shudder to even think about?
Wake up, white Roanoke, and think about the path your leaders are carrying you down while there's still time. Already there's hell to pay, and the decision to be made is: To which end of the spectrum should the money be spent?
It has been said, ``In the final analysis, the white man cannot ignore the black man's problem because he is part of the Negro and the Negro is part of him. The Negro's agony diminishes the white man and the Negro's salvation enlarges the white man.''
Walter S. Claytor of Roanoke is a retired dentist.
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