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Birmingham Mayor William Bell speaking at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. . (Tamika Moore/tmoore@al.com)

Kyle Campbell

By Kyle Campbell, Southeast Regional Director for College Democrats of America and state president of Alabama College Democrats

She never took a day off work.

Not when her arthritis made it painful to keep doing the same tasks she'd always done, or when her son was suspended from school; in retrospect, maybe her being there would have kept him out of trouble, but she couldn't afford the missed wages.

She worked so long and so hard, and invested what little she could save just right, so that when she retired, she had the same income she had when she was working. In her retirement, she saw a side of her neighborhood that she missed during the ten hours a day she was away from home. She saw trendy new restaurants in what were once abandoned buildings. She saw people - white people - shopping at stores that she had never heard of. She saw groups of kids of all races playing at the park that was closed just a few years ago. She thought back to her own childhood, when Jim Crow's ugly hands and powerful hoses kept this kind of change from becoming a reality, and she smiled at what she was witnessing. She decided to take her grandchildren out for a day on the town.

But before she had the chance to see that a meal at one of the new restaurants cost four-times her daily food budget, before she could see the price tag on the dress she would have to reluctantly tell her granddaughter she couldn't afford, she saw something else - a note taped to her door. It was from her landlord, informing her that her rent was doubling next month. That note sparked a fight that continued for the next few weeks, until she was inevitably evicted. Until she had to leave the home she had occupied for nearly fifty years. Until she looked back on all the progress she had observed months ago and saw the same thing she saw when she was a child - a white neighborhood she couldn't live in.

She lives in Alabama, but not just in Alabama. She lives in every urban neighborhood in every major city in the United States. She has former neighbors who are now homeless, because after being forced out of the city, they couldn't afford the transportation to get to work. She was at the town hall last week on what John Archibald called "Birmingham's Saddest Day."

And it was a sad day. It's always sad to see, in the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, such animosity between races. But maybe the citizens who were concerned that Birmingham might have a white mayor didn't hate white people, but instead remembered what life was like for black people last time the mayor was white. Perhaps the protestor concerned with the growth of Avondale doesn't hate the idea of Melt or Post Office Pies, but is concerned that the only people who will get to enjoy them have income that most Birmingham residents will never see.

Black people in Birmingham who oppose gentrification don't oppose development. They don't oppose more tax revenue for their communities, or new places to eat, shop, or take walks.

They oppose their own eviction. They remember when the city was mandated to integrate its public pools - and instead let them decay to the point of no return. They can't think of a time in their lives when anything was actually built for them. And while you see the brand new park on their block you'd like to take your dog to, they see the new benches they may have to sleep on when they can no longer pay their rent.

Regardless of the rhetoric, their fear is entirely rational. It is up to Birmingham to prove them wrong. Where the city invests in redevelopment, it must also explore ways to control rent levels for current residents. For those who are forced to move to less expensive areas, the city must drastically improve public transportation to ensure that the new amenities can be enjoyed by everyone. Gentrification and development are currently synonyms, but they don't have to be.

Mayor Bell and the Birmingham City Council love their city; believe it or not, standing in front of a crowd and being told you hate your own race isn't the kind of job people who are simply power-hungry want. But as Birmingham grows, the government must take steps to ensure that no one is left behind.

The city's development policies must say to its poorest, most vulnerable residents what they've been saying to tourists for years - that it's nice to have you in Birmingham.