The Rock Island Coalition of African-American Stakeholders released the following statement, after the City Council voted Feb. 14 to reject a $33,500 African-American Civil Rights grant from the National Park Service:
“Although we consider it to be the correct decision for the Rock Island City Council to vote to return the grant, however, to win a battle that we should never have had to fight has provided a good opportunity for us to regroup and invite the city to ‘come to our table’ to develop a plan that gives new vision and imagination to the struggles, culture, history, and achievements of many generations of African-Americans from Rock Island.
“Now with a path forward, there is an opportunity to create the right partnerships with qualified, credentialed historians, historical consultants, and other professionals for the important work of analyzing, interpreting, and documenting the history of generations of African-American citizens from Rock Island. Equally, it is necessary that we, the African-American Community, are the architects and storytellers of our own experiences.
“When buildings have been torn down, the story is more about culture and what happened at sites rather than the building itself. That means oral histories will be an intricate part of documenting the stories of the buildings where African-Americans once lived, worked, and worshiped.
“The Coalition considers our next steps should be starting an awareness campaign to gather information on how the African-American community envisions proceeding with the vital work to document and tell the history of Rock Island’s African-American community.”
