Watson: Providence Preservation Society Ignored Us Again

Watson: Providence Preservation Society Ignored Us Again

I wasn’t proactively engaged by the Providence Preservation Society and instead saw this post through social media. Therefore, I’m going to share my sentiments in a similar fashion.

First and foremost the families that were displaced were African heritage (including Cape Verdean) and American Indian. Those are the two groups that collectively make up the “Black” community in Providence.

Read the Providence Preservation Society Report HERE

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Failure to acknowledge the size and persistence of the American Indian presence in the City only serves to contribute to the erasure of Providence’s American Indian heritage and community... which was one of the main goals of urban renewal.

It’s disappointing to see this agenda of erasure carried on while PPS simultaneously claims to make amends for its past actions.

Second, It’s important to note that this isn’t just “what happened historically;” there are people alive today who were a part of the deliberate decision-making process that caused these atrocities. And there are people/families alive today who lived through these experiences and actions; myself and my family included. Those families and communities are very open to sharing their experiences and being part of the solution to address what happened to them. So why weren’t we engaged for this?

I know because over the past 6 months through the work I’ve engaged with the Providence Cultural Equity Initiative and Roger Williams University on the City of Providence’s Truth, Reconciliation, and Reparations process, I’ve been doing just that; connecting with the individuals and families that actually went through these experiences and getting their feedback on what they’d like to see as part of the reconciliation and reparations process.

I wasn’t contacted about any of the Providence Preservation Society’s new strategic plans… and I live in Providence, I'm from one of the families that were impacted by PPS’s policies, I’m a Community Planner by profession, and I’m actively engaged in this type of work. I doubt many others from my community were contacted either.

So once again, it’s quite disappointing to see that even when acknowledging what happened to our communities and portending to make amends for past atrocities, our communities are still excluded from the process by academic and historical minds who seem to still think that they have power, authority, and capacity to make plans for us that neither includes us in the process nor even attempt to seek our approval. It’s extremely disappointing, to tell the truth.

Lastly, while I appreciate the acknowledgment of what happened to my family and my community, the institutional effort and interest cannot end with just acknowledging the atrocities that took place and unilaterally making plans to “do better." There needs to be an intentional and deliberate plan and strategy to engage the people who were actually affected; like I’ve been personally doing for the past 6 months.

And then there needs to be some form of restitution that actually costs the PPS something… just like their decisions cost my family and my community its livelihood.

“We know we did wrong and we’ll do better moving forward” just doesn’t cut the mustard when your grandparents lost their home because of somebody else’s deliberate decision. Respectfully, it just doesn’t.

This type of engagement can be effectively done when people actually want to get it done. So the fact that Providence Preservation Society hasn’t gotten it done simply shows the lack of interest on their part in actually engaging with our community. And that’s not disappointing; that’s to be expected, honestly.

It’s also the same mentality that got our communities into this space; doing things “for” us, instead of doing things “with” us.

Respectfully, Providence Preservation Society—and all of the other Rhode Island-based historical societies for that matter—please stop using our communities to gain headlines and federal funds, while continuing to ignore us and do things “for” us.

We don’t appreciate it, it’s not beneficial to our communities, and we won’t tolerate it any further.

You all should know better by this point.

Raymond Two Hawks Watson is a leading civil rights leader in Rhode Island and CEO/Founder at Providence Cultural Equity Initiative.