This is a great opportunity to meet your fellow Leaguers and have two-way communication with League and Action Group leaders.

Author Sarah-Jane Vatelot will speak about her book, Where Have all the Mangos Gone?

Sarah Jane Vatelot is an architect and author of “Where Have All the Mangoes Gone”.  Sarah is a Tampa Bay 2021 40 Under 40 honoree. She explains the direct link between the redlining maps, which identified as ‘hazardous’ the three historically African-American neighborhoods of Peppertown, the Gas Plant, and Methodist Town, and the 1935 effort to relocate all of the city’s black residents to areas away from the tourist-oriented downtown. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, federal dollars provided means by which the city could once again flex its muscle. Officially sanctioned segregation was out, but similar efforts cloaked as “urban renewal” were in. In 1978 City Council passed a resolution that the Gas Plant district was to be declared a “redevelopment area.” It was envisioned to support an industrial park and residential development. Jobs and homes. That is what the city said would come with redevelopment. In her book Sarah-Jane notes that Gas Plant residents were promised, “in writing, that the neighborhood would be rebuilt with ‘new affordable housing and a modern-day industrial park.” The plan also promised, in writing, 600 new jobs, with combined salaries of $5.6 million, by the end of the 1980s. “While there is little evidence that, in the 1980s, the deliberate intent was to conclude the efforts begun in the 1930s, the goal was fulfilled.” Sarah Jane will share this fascinating St. Petersburg history. 

After the General Meeting Ms. Gwendolyn Reese, Co-Principal Investigator of the Structural Racism study will speak about combating structural racism. Register separately for that here: https://bit.ly/TTTSLWVSPA

We hope to see you there!