Author: Jason M. Reynolds

Activist group Chattanooga Organized for Action released the Jan. 12 report, titled, “Negro Removal in Chattanooga.” The report is available here. Dr. Ken Chilton, an associate professor in the College of Public Service and Urban Affairs at Tennessee State University, is the author. (Chilton has been involved in the Williamson Strong group.) COA’s website says it is a “community organizing non-profit that works to initiate, support, and connect popular grassroots organizations for the purposes of advancing the local social justice movement. We’re a multi-issue organization, and we seek to eliminate the oppressive conditions that cause suffering so many of our city’s poor and marginalized people.” According to the report, Chattanooga’s gentrification has not been an accident, blaming the city’s downtown renovations, yet not blaming any one person or group. Michael Gilliland, COA’s board chair, wrote, “Our development model has been structured on inequality. Housing, amenities, and public support have centered on attracting a higher socioeconomic class of people-wealthy, professional, overwhelmingly white-regardless of the effect on working class and historically marginalized communities that have called Chattanooga home.” The report says the much-lauded public-private partnership that revitalized the downtown failed to benefit blacks. Between 2000 to 2017, the market-based renewal resulted in the…