© 2024 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Up To Date

Eddie Glaude On James Baldwin | Mixed-Income Neighborhood Trusts

James Baldwin, seminal author civil rights activist, pictured here on the Albert Memorial with statue of Shakespeare.
Allen Warren
/
Wiki Commons
James Baldwin, seminal author and civil rights activist, pictured here at the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, London.

Historian Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. highlights the lessons on race in America's history through the writings of James Baldwin, and Trust Neighborhoods has a blueprint for developing low-income communities minus gentrification and displacement.

Segment 1, beginning at 1:00: Eddie Glaude Jr. looks to James Baldwin in reconciling the contradictions of racial equity he saw in his own life and as they continue today.

Glaude needed resources "to help me deal with my own despair and disillusionment" over this country still fighting over and dealing with issues such as voting rights. So he turned to Baldwin's words for the 'urgent lessons' of the activist's life that resonate deeply in current America which continues grappling with its own history fraught with racial inequity.

Segment 2, beginning at 28:17: Mixed-Income Neighborhood Trusts (MINT) are a new model piloted in Kansas City, Missouri and Tulsa, Oklahoma that revitalize communities without sacrificing affordability and belonging.

The model aims to give low-income neighborhoods security in place, upward economic mobility, and staying power that can grow the neighborhood. Among the model's key features are promotion and maintenance by an existing neighborhood organization, stabilizing rent, and splitting equity returns between funders and the neighborhood.

When I host Up To Date each morning at 9, my aim is to engage the community in conversations about the Kansas City area’s challenges, hopes and opportunities. I try to ask the questions that listeners want answered about the day’s most pressing issues and provide a place for residents to engage directly with newsmakers. Reach me at steve@kcur.org or on Twitter @stevekraske.
Chris Young is an Assistant Producer for KCUR’s Up To Date. Contact him at chrisy@kcur.org.
As Up To Date’s senior producer, I construct daily conversations that give our listeners context to the issues of our time. I strive to provide a platform that holds those in power accountable, while also spotlighting the voices of Kansas City’s creatives and visionaries that may otherwise go unheard. Email me at zach@kcur.org.