Honoring Juneteenth by moving beyond apologies
Palm Springs is one of the most progressive, welcoming cities in the country. I’m proud to be a small business owner here and to welcome hundreds of locals and tourists every year to the bowling pro shop I own at the Palm Springs Lanes. I hear from patrons consistently that they love Palm Springs and seek us out because we’re a place that celebrates equality for all.
And yet, as we prepare to celebrate Juneteenth, a day that symbolizes the emancipation of African Americans and our ongoing fight for equality, we still have unfinished business here in Palm Springs: we have to move past apologies and provide real restitution to the Section 14 Survivors and their descendants.
The history of Section 14 casts a dark shadow on Palm Springs. The survivors’ homes were razed and their families were displaced. As the State of California acknowledged in a 1968 report after the smoke had cleared, it was a “city-engineered holocaust.”
Despite our community’s shared awareness of these historical facts, we still have not taken action to make things right. In their 2021 apology, the City Council wrote:
“The City, using public funds, cleared the land. Homes and personal belongings owned by the inhabitants were destroyed and burned by the City, often ignoring required notice provisions. Up to 1,000 residents were displaced and the community was destroyed.”
In the Council’s own words, hundreds of residents were displaced using public funds. Therefore, it is only fair that we use public funds to provide restitution for these families, as recognition of the specific and measurable harms inflicted upon them.
Negotiations between the city and the families have been ongoing: in April, the city offered the families $4.3 million, which was expected to be shared between hundreds of people. This comes to a total of less than $30,000 each, which is an unrealistically low figure when you look at property values and the magnitude of their losses.
The survivors countered, requesting $7.7 million to $10.5 million per year across 10 years, which is approximately 4% of the city’s current budget. Additionally, it is likely that the city’s budget will continue to grow as it has over the course of the past decade. So in a few years, we will be talking about even less than 4%, making it not just fair, but very affordable. To say that their request could ‘bankrupt the city’ is incorrect and alarmist.
The survivors are also willing to work with the city to identify and implement initiatives to offset these dollars. This seems like a win-win: the families get closure, and the city can close this chapter without a hit to the city’s coffers or a protracted legal battle. As a local business owner, I’d prefer to see this resolved without years of litigation and the fees associated with it.
Palm Springs has an unprecedented opportunity to do the right thing here, and to do it in a way that benefits us all in the long run. We can show the nation that Palm Springs is a city that not only recognizes past harms but takes proactive steps to right those wrongs.
The only thing worse than not apologizing is an apology without action. We have a clear path forward to right the wrongs of the not-so-distant past. Let’s resolve this matter by reaching a fair, just resolution with the Section 14 Survivors.
Kris Benz is a small business owner based in Palm Springs and has been a Palm Springs resident for more than 20 years. He is the owner of the Benz Team at the Palm Springs Lanes and is the former President of the Palm Springs Black Chamber of Commerce. He is also a former commissioner of the Palm Springs Human Rights Commission and a former member of the Palm Springs Black History Committee. His email is kbenz300@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Honoring Juneteenth by moving beyond apologies