When the news broke that the 76ers were not moving to Market East, it was a great moment for the people of Philadelphia, especially those who organized to stop the project.
Good organizing is not just protests and marches but understanding your opponent. This week, we are celebrating one of the greatest organizers, Martin Luther King Jr. MLK was excellent at understanding his opponent. He understood and mastered the essential organizing strategy of raising costs on options you don’t want your opponents to take, so they choose something else.
When others tell you stories of what happened with 76 Place, they may say billionaires got together and found some way to agree. Those billionaires did get together, but they always had more options on the table. Market East was not their only play. The option to work out an agreement with Comcast was always there. The organizers of no arena movement made sure the Sixers owners understood the cost of locating on the edge of Chinatown.
The organizers of no arena movement made sure the Sixers owners understood the cost of locating on the edge of Chinatown.
Our objections forced the Sixers to spend dollars to make their side of the argument. Our community voices reached the nation and beyond, from The New York Times to China, where the NBA is working to expand their reach.
The cost of organizing against community organizers was not the only expense the Sixers owners considered. But when community organizers showed staying power, when they refused to give up, the Sixers owners had to know that the costs to keep up the messaging for their project would continue too.
Much of the power behind the movement was that it didn’t belong to Chinatown alone. The people of Philadelphia saw the plan didn’t make sense, that it was a bad deal for Philly. At least 70 percent of us did not want this arena in Center City.
Our governor was behind us. The governor helped our cause by saying he was not going to give SEPTA extra money to build out for the arena, and by insisting no state money would go towards the development. Some members of City Council saw that 76 Place was a bad deal; they listened to us and put the people first. We will vote them back into Council.
Even though I disagreed with Mayor Parker on her methods this time, I agree with her vision. We must work together.
Organizing — protesting, those of us who got on the floor of City Council and put their bodies on the line, who went to jail for this cause — made a difference. We organizers created the narrative that created a movement. And our movement was Black and White and Asian, all standing together, and keeping on.
I remember hearing from a Black woman who’d heard about the arena and asked, “Why would they do this to these people? Why?”
What she was expressing was something we in the Black community know as empathy, and we feel it deeply. The empathy that we felt for the people in Chinatown is the same empathy we feel for our fellow Black residents in North Philadelphia, in West Philadelphia, in South Philadelphia, where the same process is happening over and over and over again, where people of color are being displaced from our communities.
Even in the midst of our own pain, my Black community stands with communities of other colors, because that’s who we are.
I’ve been disappointed at those leaders who did not understand that my people would feel this empathy. Those folks tried to divide us based on what they see as our differences. But we stood strong — as one.
My faith, my community believes that we can work together to build and grow — that all of us can succeed together. We don’t have to put one group down in order to build ourselves up. We don’t have to destroy one neighborhood so that we can prosper. We can all rise together. There’s enough wealth in this city, in this state, in this country, for all of us to live better.
Now, two years after this organizing began, we have a movement for change. We’ve been calling our coalition the Save Chinatown Coalition. But really, we are the Save Philadelphia Coalition, made of Black and White and Asian, people of different races and backgrounds. We, together, tell billionaires that they’re not going to run our city. They are not going to decide for us.
Together, we’re going to build a city where all of us can thrive, where all of us can live, where all of us can have quality schools and neighborhoods that are safe, where all of us can be what we all need to be in this city. We are going to be what our mayor calls “One city, united.” Because even though I disagreed with Mayor Parker on her methods this time, I agree with her vision. We must work together. One Philadelphia includes all of our neighborhoods, including Chinatown.
Rev. Gregory Holston is Executive Director of POWER and a representative of Black Philly 4 Chinatown.
The Citizen welcomes guest commentary from community members who represent that it is their own work and their own opinion based on true facts that they know firsthand.
MORE ON THE (NOW DEFUNCT) PLAN TO PUT A SIXERS ARENA IN MARKET EAST