It was winter 2019. Dr. Ken Chilton - formerly of Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies and now a Tennessee State University professor - stood up before a crowded Westside Baptist Church in Alton Park to present a report on the Black exodus out of downtown Chattanooga.
First, he asked a question.
"How many people in the audience are from the mayor's office?" he asked. "Or the county? Or River City? Or the Enterprise Center?"
For the next 90 minutes, Chilton discussed his new report on the gentrifying economic forces pushing Blacks out of our urban core while attracting whites.
Between 2000 and 2017, more than 2,500 black Chattanoogans moved out of downtown.
More than 5,000 white Chattanoogans moved in.
In 2000, the median income for white households in Chattanooga was $37,200.
In 2017, it had jumped to $52,600.
In 2000, the median income for Black households in Chattanooga? $23,000.
In 2017, it was less than $28,000.
In Chattanooga, Chilton said that night, 53 percent of black Chattanoogans earn less than $30,000.
More than 20 percent of white Chattanoogans earn $100,000 or more.
But who was there to hear this? The city mayor? County mayor? (If a report is presented in Alton Park and no city leader is there to hear it, does it make a sound?)
"I'm stuck, and I'm sick and tired," one Black woman said that night. "It's the same people. The old man 20 years ago and junior now. It's the same money. It's the same money."
Another woman stood.
"We either unite or die," she said. "We are not in the planning sessions, and I will say it is deliberate."
Today, tell me:
How much has changed since then?
Are our city leaders now listening?
Has money begun flowing in other directions?
Are the doors of power now open?
Is our city changing?
Fundamentally? Substantially?
Can you name one transformative shift in the past 10 years that has reversed the whitening of downtown? One shift that's helped families - white, Black, brown - working four jobs to feed five mouths? One shift where our wealthy and elite lost advantage and power?
I see cosmetic changes. I see programs. I see greed. I see good intentions and good people trying hard.
But I don't see fundamental change.
Neither does Chilton.
(Tell us if we're wrong. We want to be wrong.)
That's why, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he refused to give another report.
On Jan. 18, 2021 - two years after that Alton Park meeting - Chilton gave his virtual keynote address to conclude the Unity Group's MLK Week Celebration.
It was a talk unlike any other - a report without a report.
"We don't need any more," he said.
In the past decade, Chilton and others have published reports highlighting inequalities within Chattanooga.
Yet the numbers seem to die on the vine.
"We have had report after report after report," Chilton said. "The bigger question now becomes: What do we do about it?"
For decades, folks have been pleading, demanding: Put us in the rooms where you make decisions. Where the ink flows. Listen to our solutions. Hear our stories.
Why doesn't it happen?
"Visible power," Chilton said, "and the hidden face of power. Things left off the agenda. What gets considered and what does not."
Chilton offered four essential questions for any organization:
Who makes the decisions?
What gets on the agenda?
Who gets the contract?
Who gets left out?
Much of this problem is inherent with American capitalism, yet Chilton envisions something he calls Chattanooga Reset. Foundations, media, institutional leaders, elected officials - we audit ourselves. Who sits at our table? What biases do we hold?
How much power do we share?
He confessed his own shortcoming. In 2012, he authored the Comprehensive Gang Assessment, a tremendous study of local gang activity and its causes.
Yet he never asked: Why are we doing this initiative?
"I didn't ask that question," he said. "I helped create programs that set the stage for programs that have not been effective."
Who is here to listen tonight?...
I'm stuck, sick and tired...
We are not in the planning sessions...
Will things ever change?
Do some people in this city even want them to?
David Cook writes a Sunday column and can be reached at dcook@timesfreepress.com.
David Cook