I think people need to know the history. They need to know these policies. They need to know why their city looks the way it looks. I think in that knowledge, once you have it, there is a lot of hope, because it’s like, OK, we made these choices as a city. We can make different choices.
If we wanted to be a diverse community, we have an example of what that looks like and how positive it can be. It was Greenwood in 1952. If we want to look at what it looks like when you have communities and neighborhoods that allow people to simply be who they are, Greenwood accepted anyone and everyone.
There was a Jewish family who had a shop in Greenwood. In fact, it was Anna and Henry Zarrow, who were Jewish Russian immigrants, and Greenwood accepted them. Greenwood says, “You want to open a shop here? Go ahead. Here you go.” There was a Japanese family who owned a shop in Greenwood. There was a Latino (family): The Villareal family had a shop in Greenwood. There were white residents of Greenwood. There were in all the clubs white and Black people who danced and sang together, so if you want to know what it looks like when you create a community that allows diversity, that allows acceptance, you have no further to look than Greenwood.
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