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January 26, 2007
Barclays’ apartheid past further taints Atlantic Yards project
Amsterdam News
by Tanangachi Mfuni
Mfuni places a call to Barclays Bank to get their side of the story and collects opinions from African-American community leaders on Bruce Ratner's Barclays naming-rights deal:
“This is blood money…this is a slap in our faces,” said [NYC Councilman Charles] Barron, vowing to protest the arena’s naming.
“I knew nothing about that,” said Rev. Herbert Daughtry, minister of Brooklyn’s House of the Lord Church. A vigorous supporter of Ratner, Daughtry for decades demanded reparations from companies that profited from slavery.
“I’m profoundly concerned about it because I know a little bit about the history of the Barclays brothers who started the bank and who were involved in the slave trade,” said Rev. Daughtry speaking with the AmNews by phone. “The bank is definitely linked to the slave trade,” Daughtry concluded.
“This is nothing more than a cynical attempt to block a project of critical importance to Black families,” said New York ACORN head Bertha Lewis in a statement. The activist, who negotiated thousands of affordable housing units be included in the Atlantic Yards project, suggested that Barclays’ history is water under the bridge.
“I reject the notion that the past is the past.” [NYC Councilwoman Letitia James] wants Ratner to “rescind the contract [with Barclays] and go with a local bank like Carver,” she said, speaking of the Black-owned American bank. Other opponents would like to see Barclays pay reparations to descendants of enslaved Africans living in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at January 26, 2007 8:08 AM