During the four years I served as a presidential appointee to the Delta Regional Authority, I worked on economic development projects in parts of eight states. The constant frustration was trying to get something done in communities where discussions broke along racial lines.
There were dozens of such communities in the region we served. Race seemingly entered into every decision, even those issues we thought would unify communities rather than divide them. Pine Bluff was among the most dysfunctional of the cities we tried to help.
Nothing was ever easy in Southeast Arkansas' largest city with its us-versus-them, black-versus-white style of politics. Loud-mouthed demagogues--both white and black--too often have held sway there through the years. Earlier this month, Pine Bluff voters went to the polls and approved by more than a 2-to-1 margin a five-eighth-cent sales tax designed to stem population loss and spur development.
A majority of the city's residents, it seems, have finally had enough. Enough of the race-baiting. Enough of the scare tactics. Enough of the politics of division. They realized that this was perhaps the last chance to turn Pine Bluff around before it was in a death spiral.
There was organized opposition, to be sure, and a few people (including at least one member of the Pine Bluff City Council) made outrageous claims. This time, though, most of that rhetoric fell on deaf ears. We saw white business leaders join hands with a black mayor, Shirley Washington, to ensure passage of the proposal. The five-eighth-cent sales tax is expected to produce about $4 million annually for the next seven years. That money will be paired with the $20 million that the Go Forward Pine Bluff organization has promised to raise from private sources. The $48 million pot then will be used to implement a revitalization plan.
"Tipping point" is defined as that magic moment when an idea or trend crosses a threshold and then spreads. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term when his book The Tipping Point was published in 2000. It may be that Pine Bluff has reached a tipping point, an era when people finally will work together. They've realized that there are plenty of business owners across the state who were prepared to write Pine Bluff off for good had the initiative failed. It was a litmus test of sorts to see if Pine Bluff were really serious about addressing its problems. Now, there's hope.
I compare Pine Bluff to an old boxer who has been knocked down countless times but is trying to make a comeback. Americans love a comeback story. Pine Bluff has been down for so long (its population peaked at 57,389 in the 1970 census and is now about 45,000) that people across the state are rooting for the city rather than making jokes about Crime Bluff.
Tom Reilley, the New Hampshire investor who brought a $229 million wood-pellet plant to town and now wants to save the derelict Hotel Pines, gives credit to the mayor, a former educator Reilley describes as "a no-nonsense principal." Reilley had never heard of Pine Bluff before beginning the search for a plant location in 2013. So he comes without the preconceived notions and other baggage so many Arkansans have when the subject turns to Pine Bluff. He is, in fact, an optimist in a town where it had become increasingly difficult to be optimistic.
Reilley and those he has recruited into a group known as Pine Bluff Rising envision a downtown with activity at all hours since it will include medical offices, boutiques, floral shops, restaurants, craft breweries, hotel rooms and live music venues. They dream of the day when people from places such as Dumas, Warren, Fordyce and McGehee no longer will need to drive all the way to Little Rock.
Pine Bluff was once the unquestioned capital of Southeast Arkansas. To regain that status, the mostly white business community will have to work hand in hand with the city's majority black population. Could Pine Bluff, long the problem child, possibly become a positive example for those Arkansas cities where racial conflicts overwhelm economic development efforts?
During those DRA days, I would visit towns where the elected officials wanted to talk about infrastructure, utility rates and new roads as they battled population decline. I wanted to scream at them: "None of that matters until the white folks start talking to the black folks and sincerely seek common ground. Your public schools are almost all black. The white students are in private schools. They don't even know each other. You go to different churches and use different funeral homes. You sit in different parts of restaurants. All elections split along racial lines."
Did they not realize that outside investors--the Tom Reilleys of the world--notice such things?
I remember going to the chamber of commerce office in an Arkansas Delta community to plan a day of activities. I let the chamber leaders know that we wanted the school district involved. The chamber executive told me without hesitation: "We don't deal with the school district. You'll need to contact those folks directly." Yes, the chamber board was all white and the school board was all black.
Such communities can tout all the business parks and utility upgrades they wish. They'll continue to decline if they don't address the racial divide. The leaders of such communities would do well to pay a visit to the new Pine Bluff.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 06/28/2017