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January 18, 2010
A scolding from Norman Siegel about the history of the Urban Development Corporation, founded after Martin Luther King's assassination
Atlantic Yards Report
Thanks to the full video from the January 5 state Senate oversight hearing on eminent domain, it's worth a look at the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) historical explanation for its blight studies, and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel's forceful comment, in which he suggested that the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.--whose 1968 assassination spurred the establishment of the agency--had been perverted.
...Let me end on a personal note," Siegel said, with emotion. "Sitting here on 125th Street, walking around this building, seeing some of the names and the icons from this community, listening to the people from ESDC speak. On April 4, 1968, when Martin King was assassinated, our governor, Nelson Rockefeller, in the memory and to continue the legacy of Martin, he created the Urban Development Corporation, which is now the Empire State Development Corporation.
"There were great hopes, and great dreams, and visions of what UDC was supposed to be. I remember that. As a young kid in Brooklyn, who went south in the civil rights movement, and met with Dr. King, worked with SCLC many times--today, this agency, in the name of Martin Luther King and Nelson Rockefeller, is doing exactly the opposite of what the UDC was supposed to be set up for. The UDC was supposed to be set up in the memory of Dr. King in order to clear quote slum areas and create affordable housing for poor people and people of color."
Posted by eric at January 18, 2010 7:28 AM