Mayor Greg Fischer S Speech on Race Relations

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Mayor Greg Fischer’s speech on race relations:

Last month, Actors Theatre and the Muhammad Ali Center....which sit just a few blocks apart along the Main Street corridor....threw art parties on the same night at the same time. It was trolley hop night – and both shows featured local artists.

The Actors Theatre show was filled with people mingling and mixing over art. The Ali Center show was filled with people mingling and mixing over art.

But the people at the Actors show were nearly all black, and the people at the Ali show were nearly all white.

This, my friends, illustrates the status of racial gatherings in Louisville today.

African-Americans in our city no longer need to boycott public transit, as they did in 1870 with streetcars, to force integration.....African-Americans no longer have to pay P a g e | 2 their phone bills in pennies, as they did in the 1940s, to pressure the local phone company to hire more blacks.... African-Americans no longer have to picket the Brown Theatre, as they did in 1959, because they couldn’t see Porgy and Bess, the opera based on the lives of blacks......

Blacks and whites are equal… but largely separated… in our city -- and that is what we...you and I… must change if we are to be a thriving, diverse, vibrant 21st Century city.

Louisville -- like most large American cities -- is divided by neighborhood....though we are experiencing mixed marriages and increasing population diversity, especially in our suburbs outside the Watterson Expressway, such as Shively....Louisville remains a city where whites live east of 9th Street and blacks live west of 9th Street.

Louisville is a city divided by worship.....Sunday still remains the most segregated hour in Louisville, as it is in most of America. Whites have a major mega church in the P a g e | 3 east, as an example, and blacks have a major mega church in the west. Louisville is a city divided by geography…few whites have ever heard of and even fewer have ever visited Joe’s Palm Room in Russell ....few blacks have ever heard of and even fewer have ever visited Jacks’ Lounge in St. Matthews.

Few whites have ever eaten a chicken salad sandwich at Expressions of You coffeehouse at 18th and Ali....and few blacks have likely had a fish sandwich at Mike Linnig’s in the Cane Run area.

Last month, during a groundbreaking ceremony at the Louisville Central Community Center, I happened to be speaking to a news reporter and touted Expressions of You.

That snippet ran on the nightly news -- and, the very next day, I received a phone call from James Linton wanting to know why a bunch of white people had suddenly showed P a g e | 4 up to order chicken salad, saying the Mayor told them to visit. Some of this separation is quite natural... we tend to gravitate toward people who look like us, talk like us, have the same skin color as us....and some of this segregation can be tied to income.

We generally tend to socialize with people of similar incomes and, with a significant income gap in our city between black and white, it adds another layer of complexity to our segregation patterns....segregation by income.

But we need to break out of our comforts, we need to break out of our neighborhoods...and we need to obliterate that 9th Street divide.

Dr. Blaine Hudson, Ken Clay and my good friend Merv Aubespin have written a book, due out in a few weeks, that examines 200 years of African-American history in Louisville. P a g e | 5

Merv, who is with us today and whom many of you know very well, came to Louisville in 1955.

In his younger days, he was among those people marching and protesting....a position made easier because one of his first friends in the city was Frank Stanley Jr., a young civil rights activists who quickly recruited Merv to join the protests in spite of the fact that he was a newly- hired schoolteacher.

He began a career at the Courier-Journal in 1967 as a news artist, the first African-American to hold that position, and in the summer of 1968 was assigned to cover the demonstrations — and later riots — that occurred in the Parkland neighborhood. Since he was black, he was accepted in the crowd...and, from a pay phone, he called in stories to the newspaper. P a g e | 6

The editors were so impressed that, days after the riot, they asked Merv to become a full-time reporter...one of the first African-American reporters at the newspaper. The rest, as they say, is history.

Merv’s forthcoming book showcases the progress we’ve made in Louisville. Merv couldn’t walk into the “white” movie houses on Fourth Street and he couldn’t try on clothes at the downtown department stores. And, even with a secure job at the CJ, and a steady income, he could only buy houses in certain areas of town due to redlining.

Merv is like a brother to me and certainly a mentor.

Look how far we’ve come, Merv....and look at how far we have to go.

One of the most significant developments affecting race relations in the last 40 years, in my view, has been busing. I know that, in the past year, busing has been under fire...and I understand parents’ concerns of children riding P a g e | 7 for more than an hour each way to attend a school outside their neighborhood.

I believe those long rides should be rectified and shortened but we, as a community, cannot lose the considerable positive impact busing...and, in turn, the social interactions of our children....have had in Louisville.

Our strides the last 40 years in racial integration are, I believe, due in part to busing.

We no longer have thousands of angry whites protesting busing in the streets, as we did in the mid-1970s, but there is an undertone – and, in some cases not that subtle -- among some in the community that busing needs to end.

To do so could very well lead to an even more isolated city. I know of no thriving, growing city in America that is not diverse and inclusive. P a g e | 8

That famous photo, snapped by a CJ photographer in 1975 and a copy of which you have been given today as a keepsake, is one of the most powerful images about why our young children really are the future...a future in which people see no races.....and, as Martin Luther King said, are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

That image features a young Mark Stewart, who is white, sitting at his desk in an empty classroom at Greenwood Elementary while a young Darrell Hughes, who is black, walks by and shakes his hand.

Amid all the chaos outside...amid all the shouting, racial slurs and name calling that were happening in Louisville that day on Sept. 4, 1975...Mark and Darrell sat in a quiet classroom and connected as humans....and as friends.

As your mayor for the next four years, it’s my goal to help bring all people in our community together. Yes, some P a g e | 9 people will laugh...or call me idealistic...but our city’s strength is in its diversity....the diversity of races, the diversity of internationals, the diversity of orientations.

When I discuss racial diversity, I mean all races and all people. Often, we focus only on black and white...but our city has many international shades....Korean, Sudanese, Pakistani, Chinese, Russian.

The growth of the international population....be it immigrants from off a boat or plane or the Pakistani doctors who’ve been here for years....is one of the prime reasons our city has grown the past decade, new census data shows. And many of those international are investing in diverse neighborhoods....such as Ali Ali, who recently opened Papa’s Grilled Chicken in Portland. The place is tiny...about three tables...but the food is fresh and people are traveling from all over town for their famous fried chicken, made fresh while you wait. P a g e | 10

There are seven specific goals on my agenda that I believe can help transform our city...but I need your help in accomplishing them.

First, we must reduce the economic disparity between whites and blacks. According to census data, median household income for white households in Louisville is $50,532 and for blacks it’s $27,861.

We need more blacks as part of the middle and upper classes...and the way to achieve that is through higher education and better jobs. I’m a data-driven guy and the facts don’t lie....if you have a college degree, you earn more money. It’s simple as that.

I am very encouraged by the leadership shown recently by local African-American churches in taking responsibility for part of the 55,000 Degrees initiative. Rev. Kevin Cosby, Audwin Helton, Rev. Frank Smith and others are pledging to do their part to get African-Americans to earn 15,000 degrees to reach that 55,000 goal. P a g e | 11

Wouldn’t it be great if, as you drove across the city, and in particular the West End, people and churches had signs in their yard that read “1” “2” or “100” or “200” for the number of degrees that your church or house will produce toward this effort.

Second, we must continue to grow Simmons College into a vibrant, degree-producing powerhouse. Cities that have historical black colleges also tend to have strong black middle classes.

Perhaps Louisville has suffered because, for years, we have not had a college focused specifically on educating African-Americans....then encouraging those graduates to stay in Louisville, find a job, raise their families and become active in the community.

Third, we must redevelop West Louisville and bring new jobs and retail. It’s unacceptable that there are few places to eat in the West, beside fast-food restaurants, and even fewer places to shop. P a g e | 12

We must create new jobs in West Louisville and encourage companies to invest there -- and there is a good reason to do so on the businesses part. There is available land...inexpensive land...and a ready workforce.

One project that I believe has significant potential is in the California neighborhood. With the new St. Stephen’s Sanctuary, which will soon start construction, and the nearby Simmons College the neighborhood can be redeveloped with new housing and retail, along the lines of what happened in the east with Southeast Christian.

Fourth, we must have more integrated neighborhoods. If we as a city are ever to achieve the goal of neighborhood schools, our neighborhoods themselves must be integrated and diverse.

We need housing of all price points in every neighborhood. The West, for example, needs more than affordable housing -- its needs market rate housing. P a g e | 13

Fifth, we need a burst of entrepreneurship among African- Americans. Census data shows that, although blacks comprise 20 percent of Louisville’s population, blacks own only 5 percent of our city’s business. That’s unacceptable...and that needs to change.

We need to increase the readiness of African-American entrepreneurship by helping people develop business plans and providing mentors. The amount of venture capital and the number of angel investors who work in the black community also needs to increase exponentially so African-Americans can think big and think bold....so we can nurture the next Junior Bridgeman, Charlie Johnson, Michael White or Alice Houston.

Sixth, I want to break down the 9th Street divide. One of my ideas...and this is still in the incubation phase....is to transform the median along 9th street into an outdoor art gallery and sculpture garden. P a g e | 14

Ninth Street was created by Louisville as a way to divide communities…and it’s going to take the whole community, on both sides of this Berlin Wall, to dismantle it.

How wonderful it would be if 9th street became a meeting place for people of all races, cultures and ethnicities ....a new front yard....rather than an obstacle, a barrier, a divide.

Seven, we need to socialize together. People need to get outside of their neighborhoods and explore their city. If you are throwing a party and everyone on your guest list is the same color....or from the same neighborhood....find some diversity.

Call our new Office for Globalization, headed by Suhas Kulkarni, and ask for advice about tapping into the international community to give your party an international flavor. P a g e | 15

If we accomplish these seven things...even if we are to accomplish some of these seven things...we will have changed our city.

Louisville needs to integrate because it’s morally right...and there are economic benefits, too. Together we will rise…or fall. We do have a choice. I say let’s choose to rise.

Let’s be very aware of this as a reminder of where, as a city, we’ve been…where we are…and the work we must all do, together, for the future.

And, who knows.....if we start to socialize more, if we break down the 9th Street divide, if we integrate our neighborhoods and increase African-American entrepreneurship.... maybe in four years, when there’s an art show at the Ali Center and an art show at Actors Theatre on the very same night...both will be full of blacks P a g e | 16 and whites...international and natives...gay, straight and transgendered...all mixing and mingling over art.