This conversation among five activists in Brooklyn, New York, explores the intersections between local anti-war organizing efforts and recent response to issues of gentrification, development, and displacement. Four of the five participants are university professors and members of a neighborhood peace group formed after 9/11; the other participant is an organizer for Families United for Racial and Economic Equality. All five live in the same diverse neighborhood. The central contradiction that emerges in the conversation is between the potential for building a more diverse movement around issues of gentrification and the equally great potential for gentrification to reproduce and deepen the very social divisions that have historically hampered organizing multi-racial movements across class lines.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric