The Brooklyn Community Forum on Anti-Gentrification and Displacement
*Sunday, July 24, 2016 from 12 noon - 8 pm 
*The Brooklyn Museum does not have AC for the weekend of July 10, 2016, so they had to cancel all of their programs for three days including ours. We are sorry about any inconvenience this will cause!
This is a complete list of events and participants for our Anti-Gentrification and Displacement Forum happening on July 10, 2016. The bios of the presenters are at the end of the schedule and program.
This Program has been made possible by the collaborative efforts of MTOPP, BAN, Artist of Color Bloc, and Artists in the Agitprop! Show at the Brooklyn Museum.
Three Major Events!
Brooklyn Museum 12noon – 5 pm
March Down Washington Ave 5 – 5:30 pm
Prospect Park Organizing Picnic 5:30 pm until
Brooklyn Museum 12-5pm
The Beaux - Arts Court Program – Located on the 3rd Floor
12-12:30 pm - Opening Performance by Calpulli Tlet Papalotzin
A musical performance creating sacred space and intention from the original people’s of America.
12 – 5 pm - Organizations at Tables - *Note: Organizations involved are listed below.
There will be various organizations both from the Artist community and Grassroots organizations sharing their stories, giving out information, conducting workshops and organizing the community to become more active in fighting gentrification and displacement.
4:30 – 5pm – Monsters of Brooklyn Performance
A dance performance by the Monsters of Brooklyn to close our activities at the Brooklyn Museum.
The Auditorium Program - Panel Discussions
Located on the 3rd Floor
The Effects of Gentrification and Displacement
12:30 – 1:30 pm A frank discussion about the effects that forced displacement and gentrification has on communities of color.
- Moderator: Rob Roberson, Take Back The Land, will be focusing on the homeless population situation that is now tipping to almost 70,000 people with over half being children of color.
- Havann Fisher, The Laundromat Project, from Harlem, will be discussing Dr. Fillilove’s Book “Root Shock”, a famous book which has researched the devastating negative effects forced displacement has on families of color from a psychological and physical perspective.
- Betty Yu, Organizing Asian Communities “CAAAV”, from Chinatown, will be discussing the impact gentrification has on immigrant populations and the particular vulnerability these populations have regarding displacement efforts done by developers and landlords.
- Imani Henry, Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network (B.A.N.) from Flatbush and Crown Heights, will be exploring the direct correlation between the Police presence as an aide of gentrification and displacement, within the communities of color being targeted for rezonings and development.
- Catherine Green, Arts East New York, will be speaking about the recent rezoning of East New York, and the requirement of the City to adhere to its promises made to communities during the rezoning processes.
1:30 p.m. – Location: Auditorium
Musical Performance: Monsters of Brooklyn, from Brownsville/Bushwich, a group of teen rap artist who will be performing around the issue of gentrification and displacement facing communities of color in Brooklyn.
Successful Strategies and Stories on Rezoning and Development
2-3 p.m. – A look at successful struggles that have been employed by grassroots organizations and individuals that are fighting displacement and development through rezonings.
- Moderator: Tom Angotti, Director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development. He will be discussing his new book, “Zoned Out: Race, Displacement and City Planning in NYC”, which takes a look at the racist policies of rezoning which displace low-income communities of color and protect segregated white neighborhoods.
- Alicia Boyd, Movement To Protect the People “MTOPP”, from Flatbush/Crown Heights/Lefferts Garden, will be disclosing key strategies which MTOPP has employed to enable this group to be the only community of color to be successful at stopping a rezoning.
- Alicia Boyd and Professor Angotti will be speaking for Rene Kathawala, the head of the Task Force for a Safe School, from Upper West side, discussing his ground-breaking lawsuit, allowing his community to be the first in overturning an Environmental Impact Study analysis, which are requirements for developers and rezoning plans.
- Ana Orozco, Member of UPROSE, from Sunset Park, will discuss her organization's organizing strategies and efforts that have been employed to stop a developer from rezoning a large manufacturing area.
The Feline Room Program - Intimate discussions
Off the side of the Beaux - Arts Court on the 3rd Floor
Teen Roundtable
2-3 pm -
Facilitator: Chantel Reeves, a graduate of the NYC public schools and a college student, will be facilitating dialogue with the youth her age, to get their thoughts, ideas, feelings and support they need to help them cope with fear and consequences of displacement and gentrification within their neighborhoods.
How Can Cultural Institutions Support Communities
3:30-4:30 pm
Facilitator: Antonio Sera from Artist of Color Block along with Guest Todd Ayoung, will be exploring the role that cultural institutions can take in supporting social issues and the obstacles in realizing this.
The Anti-gentrification and Displacement March!
5-5:30 pm. We will meet at the entrance of the Brooklyn Museum and March down Washington Ave to the Entrance at Prospect Park and Empire Blvd in a show of solidarity and commitment to protect our communities and our families from displacement.
Prospect Park Organizing Picnic
5-8 pm: We will be picnicking at Prospect Park at the entrance of Empire Blvd and Flatbush Ave,. This is an opportunity for people to connect with organizers and events, to socialize on a more intimate level and to engage with each other in a spirit of comradely and hope. People should bring their own pinics and blankets. Pinic items may be stored at the Brooklyn Museum Coat Check in during the performance and retrieved before closing.
List of Participants in Alphabetical Order
Alicia Boyd – An Educator, Activist, writer and spiritualist, who founded the Movement To Protect the People “MTOPP”, to stop development and displacement in the Flatbush/Crown Heights community. MTOPP has organized and educated the people on rezonings, displacement and gentrification happening all throughout NYC. Alicia is known, as the firebrand activists that has filed lawsuits against Community Boards and local politicians (Borough President Eric Adams) and who has called them out for their cooperation and support of a rezoning that could displace over 100,000 people of color. Her organization MTOPP has been the only grassroots community women lead group that has been successful at stopping a rezoning from happening in a community of color..
Cathy Dang is currently the Executive Director of CAAAV and has organized in labor and community-led planning for over a decade with Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, the Retail Action Project and other grassroots organizations. In her time with the Retail Action Project, she helped win the first wage increase in the flagship store of 700+ employees and organizing workers to help win a racial discrimination case affecting Black women workers. At CAAAV, she has helped lead campaigns winning victories securing dozens of Chinatown tenants' homes and language access in NYCHA. More recently, she has led CAAAV in fighting for accountability of former NYPD Officer Peter Liang in the killing of Akai Gurley, a Black father killed in a NYPD vertical patrol in NYCHA's Pink Houses. She is originally from Ridgewood, Queens and Los Angeles, California, and a daughter of Chinese-Vietnamese refugee parents who raised her in a nail salon in Downtown Brooklyn.
Havanna Fisher is a budding interdisciplinary artist from Harlem who works across the fields of design, performing arts and film. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in fashion design from Parsons and a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in dance from Eugene Lang. Havanna has a profound interest in using the skills and techniques that she has acquired to combine the arts with education to bring about political awareness and thus probable change within the American landscape of ideological identity as well as creating a holistic approach to living life together. The basis for this deep enriched passion in community service stems from her experiences growing up in Harlem.
Imani Keith Henry is a longtime activist in the anti-police brutality, anti-war and LGBTQ movements in the US. He is a #BlackLivesMatter organizer with The Peoples Power Assembly. In 2013, Imani founded The Equality for Flatbush Project (E4F), which does grassroots anti-police repression, affordable housing and anti-gentrification organizing in the East Flatbush and Flatbush communities of Brooklyn, NY. In February 2015, Equality for Flatbush, initiated The Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network. Imani has a Masters in Social Work from New York University Silver School of Social Work and a Masters in Public Administration from The Wagner School of Public Service. Under the brand, OD For the People, Imani is an Organizational Development Consultant and Diversity Trainer who provides change management services specifically for nonprofits and universities..
Monsters of Brooklyn is Youth movement giving black and brown youth the tools and resources needed to empower them through HIP HOP and create music to tell a story and revive the true essence of the Hip Hop culture. Their current work focuses on gentrification and displacement issues as they fight to stay in their homes.
Rene Kathawala Is the Chair of TFSS. He serves as Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP’s firm wide pro bono counsel, responsible for managing and initiating the firm’s pro bono activities, including all administrative and legal aspects. Mr. Kathawala works with other pro bono counsel and legal services non profits to increase the quantity and quality of pro bono representation that is being provided to indigent clients in each of the cities worldwide where Orrick has a presence. In addition, Mr. Kathawala supervises and directly works on cases in such diverse areas as immigration law, family and matrimonial law, housing law, public benefits law, employment law counseling, impact litigation and nonprofit advice and counseling. Mr. Kathawala has worked on many substantial matters in the federal and state systems over his career that are reported as precedent.
Rob Robinson is a cofounder and member of the Leadership Committee of the Take Back the Land Movement and a staff volunteer at the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI). After losing his job in 2001, he spent two years homeless on the streets of Miami and ten months in a New York City shelter. He eventually overcame homelessness and has been in the housing movement based in New York City since 2007. In the fall of 2009, Rob was chosen to be the New York City chairperson for the first ever; official mission to the US; of a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing. He was a member of an advance team coordinated by the US Human Rights Network in early 2010; traveling to Geneva Switzerland several times to prepare for the United States initial appearance in the Universal Periodic Review.
Professor Tom Angotti – is a Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Policy Development from Rutgers University and over 40 years of experience teaching and working in the field of urban planning. He is the Director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development. His is the author of six books on Urban Development including his latest called Zoned Out: Race, Displacement and City Planning in New York City, which is available at URPUB.org
List of Organizations at the Event: Picture the Homeless, The Flatbush Tenant Coalition, MTOPP, BAN, Equality for Flatbush, The Artist of Color Bloc, UpRose, Citizen Defending Libraries, CAAAVE, FUREE, Black Lives Matter,#DecolonizeThisPlace, Interference Archives, Mi Casa No Es Su Casa, , Arts East New York, and others….