The Wayback

On May 11, we welcomed the neighborhood out to The Wayback, a Community Block Party celebrating the Community Stewardship Trust and its newest building at 890 Dill, just up the block from 918 Dill, which is clanking along under construction.

Black and brown communities often have a fraught relationship with development and “revitalization” that overwhelmingly price out and displace legacy residents. Old buildings are adapted into new spaces that exclude. New infrastructure is added as people are forced to leave. Our approach to development challenges that status quo. The Wayback was a celebration of the neighborhood’s past and a glimpse into a bright future where residents build power and self-determine what their communities look like.

We know that none of these ideas are new. Working together, collective ownership and stewardship, collaborating to build healthy community wealth and respecting each others’ voices and needs—those principles are embedded in traditional Black, brown and indigenous communities. We’ve been fractured and separated from that natural order; interrupted by exploitation and capitalism’s extraction.

We’re finding our way back to what we know in our bones is true. Together.