 To start this evening, we want to recognize two of the graduates from the May 2017 for their outstanding achievements in MS in leadership and in public administration. Dr. Hall and Dr. Norvell, would you please come up to the front to hand up the students that were chosen. Good evening. It is a great pleasure to introduce you to Paul Paves, our 2017 Dean's Award for Excellence in Leadership, Academic Excellence in Leadership. Paul, if you would come to the front please. So Paul graduated from a leadership program with a 4.0 GPA, and I'm happy to say that he has not finished with his education. That he was just recently accepted into the doctoral program of education at Northeastern University. Paul, we want to give you an opportunity to say a few words after we present you. We'll get the picture wrong with you. It's much better. It's very brief because I know everyone wants to hear Dutch Clifton. So it's a little bit of a marker. It's a marker. I just want to thank Dr. Hall and Dr. Norvell for this very special award. This doesn't mean a lot to me. Most of you don't know, but my connection to Roger Williams University was back when it was a college. And my classes were held at the Sal Academy on Smith Street here in Providence. So that's 35 plus years ago. So this is very meaningful to me and I appreciate it. Thank you very much. I also want to thank you for putting up with me while I'm here. These are great programs, the leadership and the NPA programs. I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I hope I just gave back just a little bit to the program. And I'd love to do it all over again, unfortunately I can't. So I did the next best thing. I went to Northeastern University. And most people don't know, but Roger Williams is an offshoot of Northeastern University. It started in, I believe it was the YMCA upon Mary Bossett. So going to Northeastern is just like going to Roger Williams. It's very homey to me. I want to pass along this one quick note to the students that are here tonight. Take whatever you learn from Dr. Hall and Dr. Norvell. Because you're going to use it the rest of your lives. And I'm not joking when I say that because you're going to use it in your professional life and your personal life. And for those of you who are thinking about going on in education, you'll use it there for sure. And the reason I bring that up is because what I learned from Dr. Hall and Dr. Norvell, I've been able to use in the doctorate program at Northeastern. It was a jumping off point. And what I'm doing there is just an extension of what we did here in the night school. So for those of you that are even thinking, just a little bit about moving on in education, consider a doctoral program once you've got your master's. Thank you very much. One of my favorite awards is the one I'm about to give. It's named for John W. Stout, who was the originator of the program that is where we're here. A large number of us are here, the MPI program. So it is the John W. Stout Outstanding Graduate Award. And it goes to George LeBlanc. He is a professional police officer and now he is an MPI, which makes him a member of a very important profession. He has been active in the American Society for Public Administration, including the Rhode Island chapter. He was the first, and so far only, Rhode Island and Roger Williams asked for help. He set the bar high and we have some candidates going forward this year in large manner because he led them forward. So there I don't think I could truly be a more deserving student of this award in the history of giving it. So congratulations George. Sorry for saying the bar was so high. I was like, thanks Dr. Hall, Dr. Nobel, and all of the classmates that I met throughout this program. A couple of years ago I bought the Rosetta Stone. In that it says, you must immerse yourself in the language. So watch Spanish speaking television, read the newspapers. It's the same thing as this program. You immerse yourself in it. You immerse yourself in the literature, in the professional organizations I just asked about. And that's really the biggest thing to do is just get engaged, get involved, and you'll go far. Thank you. And wish them all the best in their future endeavors. Now please help me welcome our keynote speaker for the evening, the Honorable Judge Edward C. Clipton. As an Associate Justice on the Rhode Island Superior Court from 1994 until 2015. He also presided over the Providence County Adult Court from 1998 to 2004. He served as a member and later chair for four years of the Rhode Island Supreme Court's permanent committee on women and minorities from 1998 until 2015. He was one of the original incorporators of the Thurgood Marshall Law Society of Rhode Island Inc. Upon retirement from the bench, Judge Clipton joined the faculty of Roger Williams University School of Law where he has taught a perspective course for the last few years on the American jury system. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Roger Williams University School of Law. I'm the Development Corporation of Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Urban Debate lead and is a founder and member of the Black Point Authority Initiative Bannister Fund, a field of interest fund at the Rhode Island Foundation. In 2017, Judge Clipton served as one of the two honorary chairs of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities Read Across Rhode Island Initiative which had selected just mercy as the 2017 book of the year. Judge Clipton was the first recipient of the Wheeler School Distinguished Communities Spirit Award and involved in many community activities. He also co-chairs and is the recipient of numerous awards. To me, he was honored to receive the Distinguished Service Award from the National Center for State Courts. The list goes on and without further ado, please help me welcome Judge Edward Clipton to the stage. Well, I'll speak longer than I was supposed to. Well, I'm not supposed to laugh at that. Thank you, Anthony. The topic that I chose to discuss is what I characterize as the historical racial discriminatory land policies that have existed in the United States and with their current effects on it. I'd like to start by quoting from a recent article that appeared in the Sunday Provence Journal on September 17, 2017. The story was entitled, Lipid Guild Residents Get a Chance to Tell Their Stories. The written article chronicled a number of stories from Black Provence residents that's selected by Ray Brayden, a local historian and owner of stages of freedom bookstore. According to the article, and I quote, Lipid Hill had been home to Black residents since the early 19th century, meaning 1800 onwards. When Moses drowned sole land on Holney Street to his former slave, Noah Brown, according to Rickwins Research, Noah Brown's descendants remained in the neighborhood until 1936. By the 1950s, Lipid Hill was described as a dense, historic and diverse neighborhood, which was desirable by today's standards. But deplorable in 1959. In 1959, the city of Provence contained the entirety of Lipid Hill. More likely, the city of Provence utilized the law under imminent domain to do so. The city of Provence then transferred all of the property which comprised 57 acres of land between North Main Street, Holney Street, Camp and Doyle Street to the city, more likely than not the province redevelopment authority. The individuals of Black individuals who lived there had little bargaining power. The Lipid Hill homeowners were forced to take cash settlements for their properties, and those who were renters received cycles to assist them with move-on costs. Formerly, Provence's largest Black neighborhood by January 1961, most of Lipid Hill had been razed, meaning all of the buildings had been torn down and removed. Relocation for those residents was difficult. The Black residents who faced a housing market that in 1960, it was legally permissible to discriminate. A study from that year by the Provence Journal reported that 85 to 90% of those Black residents of the formerly Lipid Hill relocated to streets adjacent to Lipid Hill. The second most common area was South Provence. A recent article written by George Hoxie appeared in Fortune magazine. It was taken from a record-heat co-author entitled The Road to Zero Wealth, and it concerns the continuing gap, economic gap, between white families' income versus Black and Latino families' income. And a projection of those gaps in the future, which are troubling, at least to me. According to Hoxie, who is the director of the Project on Opportunity and Taxation at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of inequality.org, a median Black family has just $1,700 in wealth, meaning the total assets mining the total debt. 30 years ago, that same family had $6,800 in today's dollars. Latino families at the median have nearly similarly small assets, just $2,000, and have seen a decline over the past three decades. White median household wealth is significantly higher, $116,000 up from 102 over the same period of time. So what does Hoxie ask the future of Lipid Hill? By 2053, 10 years after the country as a whole is projected to be majority non-white. Black median families will own zero wealth if current trends continue. 20 years later, Latino median families will follow suit. White families will continue to have six-digit network. Hoxie wrote the following. The enduring legacy of slavery and the Jim Crow era contribute to the growing divide. For example, just 2% of the heavily subsidized mortgages made by the Federal Housing Administration in the 30 years following the Great Depression went to non-white households. Homes, Hoxie wrote are the biggest asset and most middle-class families own. So this sort of federally sanctioned discrimination created a huge intergenerational disadvantage for the Black and Latino families to let go. So you may be asking yourself some questions. Hopefully you are. You may be asking why did this happen? You may be asking how did this happen? And you may ask the question, well, how long as a nation have we been aware of this? In 1967, there was a commission called the Current Commission named after the then governor of the state of Illinois. The official name of the commission was the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. The current commission was created by an executive order of then-president Lyndon Vaines Johnson. It was charged with the responsibility to investigate the urban rebellions that had erupted between 1964 and 1967. The commission was charged with three questions. First, what happened? Second, why did it happen? Third, what can be done to prevent racial disturbances in the future? The current commission studied 23 cities which had experienced a racial rebellion in 1960 and racial rebellion. In 1968, just about 50 years ago, the study, the current commission included, quote, that the United States was moving towards two societies, one black, one white, separate, and unequal. They continued, African Americans experienced severe economic and social disadvantage compared to whites. Largely poor black populations were confined to the central cities while a predominantly white population moved up. As to what can be done, they answered the federal government had to intervene to improve housing. According to a number of academics, while President Johnson accepted the report, he did not support the conclusions and minimal efforts were made following the production of the report to address the problems that were identified by the current commission. Before I go on, I'd like to discuss some legal definitions that you will be hearing about shortly. The first is what is known as de facto segregation. And in the law there is a dictionary which is called Black Slaw Dictionary, that is the true name of the book. De facto segregation is defined in Black Slaw Law Dictionary as quote, segregation that occurs without state authority, usually on the basis of socioeconomic factors. Having effect even though not formally or legally recommended. Another legal definition is imminent domain, which is the inherent power of a governmental entity to take privately owned property, especially land, and convert it to public use, subject to reasonable compensation for the taking. That is to come under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the so-called takings clause that requires that the government compensate the private land owner. The next term I'd like to discuss is what is known as a covenant. Covenants occur in marriage, covenants occur in land tax transactions. A covenant is a formal agreement or promise usually contained in a contract. Another term I'd like to discuss is what is known as a restrictive covenant. A restrictive covenant is a private agreement usually found in a deed or a lease that restricts the use or occupancy of real property, especially by specifying such names as law sciences, building laws, architectural science, and the use to what property may be put to, the use that it may be put to. Another legal term is what is known as de jure, it's D-E, capital J-U-R-E, segregation. That is defined as segregation that is permitted by law. Two other terms, less legal but nevertheless, I think it's worthy of discussing, is what is known as a ghetto. A ghetto is defined in American Heritage Dictionary as a slum section of the city occupied by a minority group who live there because of social or economic pressure. The second definition is a section or quarter in a European city to which Jews are or were restricted. The last term that I want to talk to you about is what is known as the inner city, which is the older central part of the city, especially when character was crowded, blowing from the neighborhood. Recently there was a book that was published entitled The Color of Law, a forgotten history of how our government segregated America. This book was written by Richard Rothstein, who is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He's also associated with the Haas Institute at the University of California at Thurgood. And in the preface to his book, Rothstein wrote the poem. When from 2014 to 2016 riots in places like Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Charlotte, North Carolina captured our attention. Most of us thought that we had an answer as to how the segregated neighborhoods with their crime, violence, anger, and poverty came to be. We said that the de facto segregation was what causes. It continued. We tell ourselves de facto segregation has various causes. When African Americans moved into a neighborhood, like Ferguson, a few racially prejudiced white families decided to leave. And then as the number of black families grew, the neighborhoods deteriorated. And white flight has been described, followed. Real estate agents steered whites away from black neighborhoods and blacks away from white ones. Banks discriminated with red lines. Refusing to give mortgages to African Americans. Or extracting unusually severe terms from them with subplot loans. African Americans haven't generally gotten the education that would enable them to earn sufficient incomes to live in white suburbs. And as a result, many remain concentrated in urban neighborhoods. Besides, black families prefer to live with one another. These were all of the things that a number of us felt was the real reason for the de facto segregation. And Boston continues, all of this has some truth, but it only remains a small part of the truth. Submerged by a fair more important one. Until the last quarter century, the last quarter, rather, of the 20th century, which please understand, we're talking about 1975 to 1979. Racially explicit policies of federal, state, and local governments defined where whites and African Americans should live. Today, residential segregation in the North, South, Midwest, and West is not the unintended consequences of individual choices. And otherwise, well-meaning law or regulation. But of the unhidden public policy that explicitly, I want to repeat that, that explicitly segregated every metropolitan area in the United States. The policy was so systemic and forceful that its effects endured to the present time. Without our government's purposeful imposition of racial segregation, the other causes, private prejudice, white flight, real estate steering, bank redlining, income differences, and soft segregation still wouldn't have existed with far less opportunity for expression. We all know that slavery officially came to an end in 1865. And the U.S. Congress in 1865 enacted the 13th Amendment, which formally constituted the abolition of slavery. Section one of the 13th Amendment reads as follows, Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section two of the 13th Amendment provides, Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The next year, 1866, Congress enacted the so-called Civil Rights Act, that enforced the abolition of slavery, that additionally prohibited actions that it deemed, that Congress deemed, perpetuated the characteristics of slavery, confining people to so-called second-class citizenship. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 provided, quote, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. It continues, So, what happened? In 1883, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a case that although Section 2 of the 13th Amendment expressly allowed Congress to enforce Section 1, the United States Supreme Court ruled that that power did not accept, that exclusions from the housing market, prevention of people from the housing markets, could be a badge or incident of slavery. And not just people, we're talking about the black people, the African-Americans who were formerly slaves, up until 1865. The United States Supreme Court said, we don't consider that to be part and parcel of the right to be involved in bear housing, for lack of other words. Rothstein wrote that following the Civil War, black families began their first migration away from the slave-holding states. They moved to a number of distant states. And around, for example, in 1898, in the state of Montana, black settlers were living in all of the 56 counties that comprise that state. However, they were not welcome. The Jim Crow beliefs and attitudes that originated from the slave-holding states both sound and more, empowered some whites in Montana to practice the same ideas and practices found in the South. By 1930, blacks no longer lived in 11 of those 56 counties in Montana, which they had previously occupied. Some of this was accomplished by the local enactment of so-called sundown policies. These were informal policies adopted by the white community and forced by the local police or organized models that were made African-Americans to live or be within the town borders after sundown. During the Depression, during the administration of then-president Herbert Hoover, we all know that employment was dismal, businesses were failing, and some of the businesses that were failing at that time were the home-building groups in the United States. A national conference was convened of the home-building industry. And before the conference, a trade organization, the Better Homes in America, published when it was known as the Better Homes Network, consisting of a host of recommendations from its leaders. It's been the president of the Better Homes in America stated before the conference that apartments were the worst-hand housing frequently overcrowded because of, quote, ignorant racial habits of African-Americans and European immigrants. Some of the more notable attendees at the conference was a gentleman by the whose name was Robert Whitton, who designed Atlanta, Georgia's zoning laws in an attempt to avoid the precedent-setting case of Buchanan. Another attendee was the president-elect of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, which had recently adopted ethics rules prohibiting agents from selling homes to African-Americans in white neighborhoods. Before we all probably have heard of the Federal Housing Administration, but before the enactment or the creation of the Federal Housing Administration, the role of federal housing fell under the jurisdiction of the Department of Commerce. The Housing Division was responsible for the national policy of housing. The chief of the National Housing Division of the Department of Commerce made recommendation to the people who attended that building conference. One was, quote, to buy partnership in the community. Restricted residential districts may serve as protection against persons with whom your family won't care to associates, provided the restrictions are enforced and are not merely temporary. So that was essentially the origin of a number of the restricted covenants that were found and may still be found in deeds that are contained city of Providence. I come from Texas, and during research a number of years ago on peace of land and on my father and stepfather, I found in black and white in the D, no African-Americans allowed on this particular peace of property. So the attendees at the conference included the president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Which had a division that engaged in finance and home ownership. The president of Metropolitan Life, you know, Sophie. Okay, just so we keep this phone in context. He recommended that zoning laws be supplemented by deep restriction to prevent, quote, incompatible ownership occupancy. A phrase that generally understood to mean the prevention of sales to African-Americans. Later, under the control of the leadership of that president, Metropolitan Life developed, which then the largest planned community in the United States. The developments Parkchester located in New York, in the Bronx. And in Parkchester, African-Americans worked for duty. Before the federal housing administration came into existence, home ownership for working and middle-class Americans was virtually impossible. Bank mortgages typically required 50% down. They required interest only payments. And they required repayments within five years, five to seven years. So interest only means all that you pay, you never pay anything towards the principal. You're paying just for the benefit of having the money. So families who took out these mortgages, what were they required to do? So every five to seven years, they were required to refinance, usually under the same term. So this was like you would ever, ever, ever own your home. One of the problems facing the middle-class and low individuals, regardless of race, at that time, was foreclosure on their mortgages. To address that problem in 1933, the federal government created what was known as the Home Owners Loan Corporation to purchase existing mortgages and rewrite them in more favorable terms for the borrowers, lower rates of interest, amortized loans, meaning you're paying both the principal and the interest at the same time. You had longer mortgage terms used in 15 years. You had full ownership of the property afterwards. And in order to qualify for these mortgages, the Home Owners Loan Association needed to be reasonably satisfied that the loan would be granted to a borrower who would repay the loan. In part, this meant that the existing house would maintain its value. And to do so, the Home Owners Loan Corporation engaged local real estate agents to make the preliminary assessment through appraisals. These real estate agents were the same people who were ethically to the code of ethics that had been adopted early on by the society. And they were ethically bound to maintain the racially restrictive agreement that were in existence. The Home Owners Loan Corporation, in order to carry out their function, created color-coded maps of every metropolitan city in the United States. The color-coded maps, the safest ones, were colored green. The riskiest ones, red. We asked ourselves, where did the term come from? They came from the Home Owners Loan Corporation, a part of the United States government before 1932. If African-Americans lived within an area, even if it was solidly middle class by those standards, it was coded red. That did not automatically mean that the homes in their neighborhood would be denied the benefits, but it made it extremely more difficult. So, under the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Federal Housing Administration was created. And understand that just like all legislation locally, nationally, that when something is proposed, it has to pass the house, it has to pass the center. So, compromise is always a part of any legislation that comes forward. The Federal Housing, and I'm going to come back to that in a moment, the Federal Housing Administration ensured bank mortgages of up to 80% of the purchase price, meaning that 5 people... The federal government had to take down 20% of the down payment, 20-year terms. The Federal Housing Administration assisted on its own appraisals. However, those appraisals included, again, the wife owner requirement, meaning that racial segregation became an official policy of the federal mortgages program. They used the same appraisers who were bound by their ethical code of conduct. The FBJ produced a number of manuals that it would give to its employees. One of them said, and this remained in effect until 1947, it said that, quote, if iniquity is to retain stability, it is necessary that property self-contained to be occupied by the same social and racial classes. A change in social or racial occupancy generally leads to instability and a reduction in the values. The appraisers were given further instruction. Give higher ratings where protection against some adverse influence is obtained. And that important among adverse influences are infiltration of inharmonious racial and national groups. The FHA discouraged banks from lending to homes that were not in a particular area. In addition to the FHA... Let me stop. Let me go back a second. The FHA federal house administration also favored mortgages in areas where boulevards or highways... End of saying 95, if you will. As it weaves its way through the problem these days. But the FHA favored mortgages in areas where boulevards or highways serve to separate African-American families from white families. Saying that, quote, natural or artificially up to African's barriers will prove effective in protecting a neighborhood and the locations within it from adverse influence, including prevention of the infiltration of war class occupancy and inharmonious racial groups. A section in the manual produced by FHA, a section 284 sub 2 says reaches follows. Carefully complied zoning regulations which require municipal action are the most effective because they do not only exercise control over the subject property, but also over the surrounding areas. However, they are seldom complete enough to assure an homogenous and harmonious neighborhood. It went on. Section 284.3 says this was part of the federal government manual. Recorded deed restrictions should strengthen and supplement zoning differences. Recommended restrictions included the prohibition of the occupancy of properties accepted by the race for which they are intended and appropriate provisions for enforcement, meaning you can go to court, must be contained within those. In addition, the FHA provided financing for a number of developers developing properties in the suburbs. So, and I'm not saying that this did happen, but for sake of discussion, let's assume that the developers of Garden City saw and obtained financing from this, that came ultimately from FHA. Obviously, they would want to get the highest loan for the lowest price. So, obtain one of those loans. Those loans would require that those provisions be contained in those particular documents. So, whereas the loans would say, and the documents would read such as, whereas the federal housing administration requires that the existing mortgages on the same premises, set premises be subject and subordinated to set restriction. So, that would be in the document, the deed covering all of Garden City. So, the owners of Garden City could legally discriminate against people, non-white people because they received the money from the federal government. Let's talk about another agency of the United States government, the Veterans Administration. How many here are veterans? None of us are old enough to be World War II veterans. Who all are familiar with a developer called Levitt? Nassau County, New York, between Himstead and Farmington, built by Levitt and Son, a Jewish family headed by Abraham Levitt and his two sons, William and Alison. The first planned community in the United States developed between 1947 and 1951. It was unique in that it had land donated for public elementary schools, traffic calming, curvilinear roads, no four-way intersection. First mass-produced suburb and is regarded as the archetype of post-war suburbs throughout the United States. In addition to Levittown, New York, they built one in New Jersey, Williamsburg Township in New Jersey, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico. They were conceived as a rental property, but they were so successful that they decided, huh, let's sell these things. The properties were sold for $8,000, $65,000 in today's, and $2,009. Because of housing subsidies from the Veterans Administration through the GI Bill and other federal subsidies, the upfront costs to buy into Levittown were $100. A clause contained in the buying agreement stated that the property could not be used nor rented by individuals other than those of the publication race. Sales agents were aware of the restriction, and as a consequence, no black families were accepted. William Levitt, one of his sons, who served as a CB during World War II, we all know where the CBs were trained, don't we? He became the president of Levittown's son. In many years, when asked about the discriminatory policy of Levittown, he was quoted as saying the following. As a Jew, I have no room in my heart for racial prejudice. But the plain fact is that most whites prefer not to live in mixed communities. This attitude may be long and morally, and someday it may change. I hope it will. Another federal agency, the Federal Highway Administration. Rothstein maintains that many of the DeJure segregation policies aim to keep African Americans far from white residential areas. They shifted African American populations away from the downtown district so that white commuters, shoppers, and business elites would not be exposed to black people. Some slum clearances was a way to accomplish this through the mid-20th century. So when we think back to what happened to Lipith Hill, was the term slum, white, those are widely understood euphemisms for African American neighborhoods. Because black folks were prevented from relocating into the suburbs, the places where they live, they couldn't get mortgages to fix up their property. Of course they're going to get blighted. Rather than raise the blighted neighborhoods and allow for people to move into integrated communities, local communities, and the Federal Highway Administration collaborated in the construction of the Federal Highway System. In 1943, the American Concrete Institute urged construction of urban expressways for, quote, the elimination of slums and blighted areas. In 1949, the American Road Builders Association wrote to President Truman that interstates properly routed through metropolitan areas, they could, quote, contribute in substantial manner to the elimination of slum and deteriorated areas. The Federal Interstate Highway System buttressed segregation in many cities across the country. In Florida, the Florida State Road Department routed 195 to accomplish what unconstitutional zoning ordinances were attempted to do, but were unable to do, right-snacked gap through a section of Miami where Black families live, rather than going through an abandoned railway that ran parallel to where 1 to 95 is. That happened also in Los Angeles. So I'm running out of time and I want to conclude in a couple minutes. Earlier this year on May 19th, the Economic Progress Institute, formerly known as the Providence, I'm sorry, Poverty Institute, with the assistance of the Racial Justice Coalition of Rhode Island, published a report entitled, The State of Black Families in Rhode Island, Left Behind by Making Stomines. A contributor to the report wrote in the introduction of the following. From the early days of Rhode Island's colonization, and the subsequent reliance on Black slaves for both labor and trade, through widespread displacement and assets stripping through eminent domain via the federal housing and the use of redlining to perpetuate racial segregation in the 20th century, Black Rhode Islanders have been dealt an unfair hand. The historical legacy of centuries of unequal treatment manifests itself today through many socioeconomic indicators. In Rhode Island, another story. Access to the political housing in Rhode Island lands. Housing networks, faculty produce this. Rhode Island's overall home ownership rate is 60%, which is the lowest in New England and ranks 46 nationally. For white families, the rate of home ownership is 65%. For families of color, the numbers are more distressing. Latino families, 28% home ownership. Black families, 31% home ownership. Asian families, 50% home ownership. Because of the overall increases in prices of homes in 2016, only two communities, Central Falls and Providence, excluding the East Side, offered homes a percent that fell within the budget of a Rhode Island families with annual household incomes of under $50,000. For renters in Rhode Island, no one in the family where the average cost of a two-level apartment was affordable on a household income of about $31,000, the median income for renters. For renters earning less than $50,000, just six communities in this state had worked for Central Falls, Cranston, East Providence, Patucket, Nusocket, and Providence, excluding the East Side. Final note, here in Rhode Island, we've had a law that has been existing for a number of years. The legislature has mandated that each community in the state of Rhode Island have 10% of their housing stock, as long-term, de-restricted affordable housing. That was been on the books for 30-plus years. Only five communities thus far have met their goal. Central Falls, Newport, New Shore, which is block island, Nusocket, and Providence. To conclude, I'll quote from the access to affordable housing in Rhode Island. While Rhode Island has made progress in the areas of human rights and equality, far too many African heritage people in Rhode Island are still confined to the segregated and substandard neighborhoods and have limited access to employment, education, and affordable health care. Although it was depressing, but this is new. Questions, please. I'm just attracted about what was lost on drug distribution law. So, in Providence, especially, the West Side, Elmwood, those are incoming judgment signs. And I wonder if you think that that process has any causes or if it just raises the costs of houses and picks out renters or lower income people who are people of color? It does all of it. I mean, yes, it raises. Typically, gentrification has come to be known as where people move in and improve the housing stock. But in order to improve the housing stock, a lot of that housing stock, as you said, were honestly occupied by low income people. So, where do they go? I have some statistics as to the demographics, selected communities here in the state of Rhode Island. And I have a working thesis. And the working thesis is that as the suburbs took out in the 90s and some of this elsewhere, the former white occupants of the urban city of Providence, Kentucky, they moved out. And they now live in places like North East, like Narragans and things of this nature. So what I did to follow up on that thesis, and this may or may not answer your question, but so in 1940, the population of Providence, according to the census, was 253,000 people. In 1950, it was 249,000. It was made up of 96.5% white, black population was 3.3%, Hispanic or Latino, no measurable numbers. 1960, the population of Providence had declined to 27,000. 1980, 157,000. 1990, the white population of Providence had declined, I'm just going to go from 1950 to 1990. 1990, white population was about 70%. So where did they go? Let me give you the contrast. And I'm going to just pick randomly North Kingston. 1940, 47,000 people. 1950, 14,000 people. I'm going to just do across and across. I didn't do it 1990. But 2000, North Kingston had 36,000 people living in there compared to 47,000 in 1940. The 2000 census, 95.71% was white, 0.97% black, 0.55% Native American, 0.95 Asian. So yes, and so the black folks, the people of color in the west end in Elmwood who may be displaced by a gentrifying family. Where did you can let it go? Yes. So what are the legal tools, methodology in order for vulnerable housing to sort of come into an area where they're supposed to be and wasn't supposed to be there? How do you get these towns and cities to reply? It's hard. Because first of all, you have to get the land. The land has to be there. The land in and of itself has to be there. So it has to be a substantial amount because the zoning laws, while you can't enact the zoning law that required two acres for a one-day home, you still have some control. The local communities have some control. So it's a matter of trying to overcome racial prejudices, racial biases. It's a matter of an attack, and I don't mean a physical attack, but appealing to people's sense of understanding that the neighborhoods won't go down. The values of the properties won't go down simply because you have a different complexion of family moving in there. So it takes a lot of effort from the local community, the residents of the local community. It takes a lot of effort from legislators, the town council members in the local community. It takes efforts from the state legislator. It takes efforts from banks. It takes efforts from a number of people to just go in there and try to make it a common argument for this to happen. But it's not going to happen. So even though the law is on books, I mean, for the town's being, I think I've heard a couple of times. For example, maybe like in Barrington, there have been neighborhoods that have been developed, low-income developments who have received property, but they get the property and they apply within the neighbors in practice. Not in my backyard. Not in my backyard. So they litigate, litigate, litigate, and that is end of the court. And you have to fight, fight, fight, fight, fight over a countless number of years before all of the things are resolved. I'll be quick. Yes. Not so much a question, but going to our conversation that we had earlier and picking up on the community involvement, a little history, the environmental justice movement was a product of both the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, the environment movement of the 60s and 70s. In 1992, the National Law Journal published a report on the EPA implementation of the Superfund program. It found that environmental law finds, penalties assessed by the EPA were higher in white neighborhoods than in minority neighborhoods. The report also noted that hazardous waste were removed from the white neighborhoods faster than hazardous waste in minority neighborhoods. The following year, the EPA established the National Environmental Justice Advisory which was to provide advisement recommendations for the communities. One of the most important accomplishments of that environmental movement occurred in 1994 when President Clinton issued the executive order entitled Federal Action to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. Rhode Island didn't pick up on the effects that had come into place until 1995. It wasn't noticed until, excuse me, in Rhode Island in 1995 with the Industrial Property Remediation and Reuse Act, it wasn't noticed until 1999 when the law was challenged with the Springfield School lawsuit which we were talking about and you were cited on that case that 83% of the population of the Providence neighborhood in Spring Street, it was the lawsuit claimed failure to have community involvement, students were mostly low income in non-whites, and the population less healthy and more vulnerable to harmful effects of exposure to toxic substances. And you did rule that the DEM was in violation failing to consider equality issues and failing to implement community involvement due to the process of notifying the abutting neighborhoods. And I don't think you can answer this and I think it's more that we're in the NPA program and the leadership. As you said, this was back starting in the 60s where the minorities tried to get housing rights. How can we as a group within ourselves and as a school help in this push to solve these problems? I mean, we need to start a discussion. I mean, your decision was that's 2005. We're still having some issues here. That's what I mean. I don't know if there's really any answer to this. I think it provides a partial answer and the partial answer was given by one of the awardees tonight who, hopefully, I'm packing an appointment, but information is what I think is an answer. So people need to be informed about what is going on. If you're not informed about what is going on around you then it's understandable that you cannot get involved in what is going on around you. But if you are informed then people can become more energized. They can go to their city or child council. They can go to the committees of those council. I read something else. Let me just give you, this isn't a roundabout, but the I-95 project just voted to rank the rights of a builder to build a hotel on the east side of the province river and some people have raised the question of whether or not the proposed building is in violation of the original agreements between the Ohio administration as far as the use of the land. So I think people just need to be coming informed about what's going on and use it. It's not a swear word. Get off your ass. Well, as we know, Central Justice is a very broad topic but just Clifton has done a great favor in drilling down into one of the key areas and has a lot to do with Central Justice and the current community. Thank you so much. Torca Paulino who are good officers persuaded to have Clifton to be with us today. My guest to be with us and we never let him leave in Canada. We have the MPA program faculty the MS Leave faculty the students in both programs we offer you this as our token. I appreciate it. As I said earlier, this is really the result of a lot of people putting things together and as you can see it came off pretty well. There's still food so be sure to leave with your freezer bags. If you don't have them, I'm sure you can get them. One final thank you. I think she did a wonderful job this evening in Sasha's Apada. I want to urge you to mark your calendar for March 7 for our second evening and I think we'll probably be in this room. And then May 2 which I believe we're going to do with Rick again so save those two rates and look forward to seeing you with those events and of course many of you in my class which will be held as soon as we start. So thank you all for coming and be sure to please take some food.