Good choice in Lawrence for SEDC board

Today the City Council voted to approve Mayor Jerry Sanders’ four appointments to the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. (SEDC) board of directors (to replace four whose terms had expired). SEDC is the city’s redevelopment administrator for, obviously, Southeastern San Diego. If you don’t know anything about what’s been going on at SEDC, click here.

One of the mayor’s appointees is Richard Lawrence. I met Richard almost six years ago when the owners of the Maryland Hotel were evicting their low-income tenants to make way for the current Ivy Hotel. Richard worked tirelessly to help tenants get relocation money and extra time to find new places to live—a lot of these folks were handicapped, or elderly and on fixed incomes. It’s not too easy to come up with first and last months’ rent when your monthly income barely covers your current rent. Richard’s been outspoken on other housing issues like SRO preservation, curbing condo conversions and, currently, helping out folks facing foreclosure. Not too long ago, he co-hosted a community forum on foreclosures at the Tubman-Chavez Center in Encanto.

Something not a lot of people know is that Richard worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. to fight segregated housing in 1960s Chicago. Almost a year ago, he sent me an essay he wrote about a protest he helped organize against the Chicago City Bank. I’ve included an excerpt after the jump. I think it’s pretty cool.

Chicago deserved its ranking as one of the most segregated cities in the nation because of a clear line between the black and white communities—a dangerous line for either group to cross.
White fear of shopping in the black neighborhood around the bank caused the business owners to panic. Since they could not move their businesses, the owners, including Sears-Roebuck, decided to take the property of black homeowners, tear it down and create a “safety perimeter” of parking lots, hoping it would comfort white shoppers who moved out of the neighborhood as Blacks moved in. To make matters worse, these white business owners used urban renewal and taxpayers’ money to insulate themselves from a community of black residents they did not trust and whose business they did not solicit.

We had been boycotting the businesses there and their leader, Norbert Engels, the bank president, a very well connected Texan, and a friend and political ally of both President Lyndon B. Johnson and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. As a last resort to try to counter his influence, we had organized nearly two dozen churches and ministers to withdraw their accounts from his bank.

Now we had the news that Dr. King was coming to join us in our demonstration, and as chairperson of the Englewood Action Committee and one of the boycott organizers, I couldn’t be happier. Dr. King had moved into an apartment on Chicago’s West Side to lead the effort to win open housing. It seemed like we had waited for a very long time to see the great civil rights leader, but finally he and his assistants made their way into the church basement.

After shaking hands all around, Dr. King turned to me and said, “All right now, Reverend Lawrence, what’s the plan for the day?”

I was caught a little off guard. I stumbled and mumbled as I tried to collect my thoughts. I had just assumed Dr. King would take over the leadership of this demonstration. Rather than accept the omnipotence with which we had endowed him, he reminded me and the clergy from the community – the ones in that room – that we were the real leaders and the real heroes. “You have been fighting this battle for a long time, and I am more than ready and willing to follow your leadership,” he said. “Tell me what you want me to do.”