We dream of a time when the playing field is again leveled so that true market forces can again come into play and the Bessemer Community along with the rest of East Greensboro can compete on a level playing field, when the City Council no longer picks winners and losers.
We dream of a day when restitution is given to us for what was stolen from us to benefit Greensboro's elite families under the constant guise of economic development while the economy of the eastern half of the city continued its downward spiral created by the very actions of city government, actions like cited above and almost 30 years of no police protection.
We dream of manufacturing jobs close to home, not shopping centers paying minimum wage that will never lure shoppers from the west of town-- the only ones who can afford to shop there. If transportation hubs are Greensboro's future then Greensboro's leaders should be talking about rail hubs along the North Carolina Rail Road which passes straight through East Greensboro with several unused rail sidings already in existence and more easily built but is 10 miles from Piedmont Triad International Airport at its closest.
We dream of community schools and the chance for our children to achieve. And we deserve all that and more.
Everything has been deliberately stolen from East Greensboro for 50 plus years. We want it back and we want it now. And if any of you reading this had spent the last 57 years of your life in the Bessemer Community as I have done you would all agree.
And if incentives or some other form of government assistance is required to make that happen... Well the very same is being used to fund growth in West Greensboro today and it was the taxpayers' money that paid to destroy east Greensboro before:
"This lively community began to wind down in the late 1950s and 1960s when, under the guise of "urban renewal," thousands of people and more than 80 businesses (many minority-owned) were displaced. Most of those businesses never reestablished."
