Members of the community gather at Lincoln Park for the Lincoln Park neighborhood’s announcement to file a complaint with the EPA and the state’s Human Rights Commission against the city to save the park in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Wednesday, September 24, 2014.A year after Mayor Andy Berke promised to save Lincoln Park, residents gathered to let the mayor know they have filed a federal and human rights complaint to block a proposed Central Avenue extension.
Lincoln Park leaders called the project racist because it cuts through a historic black neighborhood.
“We want progress, but we do not want progress at the expense of our history and legacy,” said Tiffany Rankins, secretary of the Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association. “We want to make this loud and clear to Mayor Berke, ‘We will not surrender our history in the name of a progress in which we are not all benefiting.'”
In August 2013, Berke promised Lincoln Park residents that the planned road route to cut to Riverside Drive would not cut through the park – home of the old Negro League Baseball games and an amusement park. Berke later agreed to swap land with Erlanger hospital for five acres of park land.
But for several months, residents have complained that the current plans will still cut through a portion of the former park and the mayor’s promises have been empty.
Berke’s staff couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.