"Race and Housing in Utah" USHS 125th Anniversary Speaker Series Transcript

"Race and Housing in Utah" transcript of presentation for the Utah State Historical Society's 125th Anniversary Speaker Series.This forum is intended to allow space for multiple perspectives. The opinions voiced in this program should not be assumed to reflect the views of a department of the state of Utah

Transcription “Race and Housing in Utah”: USHS 125th Anniversary Speaker Series NICHOL BOURDEAUX KELLEN PERKINS TONYA REITER 24 February 2022 JEDEDIAH ROGERS: Well, it’s 9:01. Let’s go ahead and get started. Good evening, everyone. I’m Jedediah Rogers, I’m coeditor of the Utah Historical Quarterly. It’s a real pleasure to welcome you all here this evening and to be able to welcome and host this session, which is part of our Utah State Historical Society 125th Anniversary Speaker Series. So thank you for being a part of this evening, wherever you may be listening or watching the session. Although we are gathered virtually, we still want to make room for some participation. And so the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen, that would be the place to type your questions, if you have any for the panelists. And we’ll try to get to those by the end of the session tonight, and we’ll be running until around, we’ve scheduled until about 8:15 or so. So, the topic on race and housing is always timely, but the impetus for the conversation tonight stems from the research or personal and family experiences of our panelists. And Tonya Reiter is an independent historian whose work on Utah’s Black communities has appeared in the Utah Historical Quarterly and the Journal of Mormon History. Back in 2017, we published her Utah Historical Quarterly piece titled “Redd Slave Histories: Family, Race, and Sex in Pioneer Utah.” And then the latest issue of the journal features Tonya’s wonderful article titled “Not in My Neighborhood: The 1939 Controversy over Segregated Housing in Salt Lake City.” So I want to thank Tonya for her thoughtful approach to history, and for introducing me to our next two panelists, who I’ll introduce right now. Nichol Bourdeaux has over twenty years’ experience working in public administration. She currently serves as planning and engagement officer for the Utah Transit Authority. Previously, she was deputy chief of staff for Mayor Ralph Becker in Salt Lake City, and before then deputy director of housing and neighborhood development for the Salt Lake City Corporation. Ms. Bourdeaux is also active in the community, including serving on, I understand, the Utah Museums Advisory Board. So it’s great to be with you, Nichol. And then, it’s an honor to be with Kellen Perkins. He is a native Utahn. He’s spent the majority of his life in Salt Lake County and Summit County. His interest and knowledge surrounding the world of real estate, because he works as a real estate agent, comes from having been born into one of Utah’s first Black entrepreneurial families, who owned farms, commercial complexes, multifamily units, and a variety of single family homes. Kellen and Nichol know each other well, family of sorts. We’ll be hearing more about that in a moment. I’m going to go ahead and turn the time over to Tonya to kick us off. So thank you, Tonya. TONYA REITER: Thanks. And thanks for Kellen and Nichol joining us tonight. It means a lot to all of us. I don’t want to talk a lot about the actual ins and outs of my article. But I do want to say a few things that came to light. As I began to think about writing about this segregated housing controversy that took place in 1939, I hoped that I could produce a more complete account of what happened, and also why it happened. And I wanted to discover, if possible, some of the motivations of Sheldon Brewster and his neighbors in the Sumner neighborhood. I also wanted to find contemporaneous accounts of the struggle between the two groups and see more about the Black community’s response to the demands for segregation. And as it turns out, the story is always more complicated, the more you dig into things, it seems. And there were many twists and turns to the episode, and there were some details that I’m not sure I’ll ever completely be sure that we sorted out. But hopefully, I’ve been able to clarify and explore some of the misunderstandings and the competing demands that were at issue and Salt Lake and, I discovered, at the same time in Ogden. One aspect of the notorious incident remains really clear. White residents called for their city leaders to limit the areas open to Black occupancy, and in the case of Salt Lake, they called for the creation of a Black housing district, despite the fact that Black families had lived all over the valley for decades. So the 1939 event has been noted in histories of Utah and is probably the most recognized attempt to segregate housing in our state. But in fact, it was not the first and it was not the last time when steps were taken to keep neighborhoods all white. I live in a neighborhood named Crystal Heights, it’s southeast of Sugarhouse, and to get to my house, I often turn east off 13th East and drive on a beautiful tree lined street called Stratford Avenue, with stately old homes set well back on large lots. As we get closer to my house, things change, and the houses are newer, much smaller, and were a later addition to the original Highland Park development that I pass through. Jed, do you have the slide for Highland Park advertising? Maybe not. JEDEDIAH ROGERS: Yeah, go ahead. I’ll put it up if I can. TONYA REITER: If you can, okay. In 1909, when Kimble and Richards bought the unimproved land where they planned to build this country neighborhood, they wanted to appeal to buyers of means: professionals and businessmen and their families, people who had money to invest in large homes and didn’t want to see their property values reduced by unregulated building. The Kimble and Richards sales pitch assured prospective buyers that when they bought a lot in this new neighborhood, no one would build unsightly shacks next door. Garages could not be built closer than 90 feet from the street. And they planned for a small business section of two blocks that would house all the commercial enterprises allowed of the subdivision. Buyers would escape the noise and smoke of downtown. But that was not all they could avoid. In an ad they ran in the Salt Lake Tribune on January 19, 1919, the developers promised, quote, “Only members of the Caucasian race are permitted to buy and hold property,” unquote. Polly Hart, who nominated Highland Park as a National Historic District, found these advertisements, and she also found that all the deeds were later amended to include that racial restriction. Kimble and Richards also built Gilmer Park, which is just south of East High and west of 13th East. In March of 1919, an advertisement they placed in the Tribune told prospective buyers that they could find in Gilmer Park, “Fine lots. They’re large enough to ensure plenty of sunshine and fresh air on all four sides of every home. And because of the proper building regulations which safeguard every home site, they will become more attractive and more valuable as the years go by.” One of these regulations again ensured that “only members of the Caucasian race will ever be permitted to buy or hold property in Gilmer Park. Kimble and Richards were not the first land development firm to write restrictive covenants. Polly Hart also notes that restrictive covenants began as early as 1890. And they were not racial ones, but rather ones to limit the type of building allowed. It wasn’t until 1914 that racial restrictions appeared when the Dunshee Brothers built the neighborhood of Westmoreland. Even after the city attorney ruled against the call for a segregated district in 1940, real estate developers and agents attempted to carve out all white areas of the city using racial covenants. In other cases, established residents made it difficult for newcomers who were people of color. A Japanese American family lived two doors down from my childhood home in Rose Park. Rose Park, in case you don’t know, sits on the northwest part of the valley, really the northernmost part of the valley—Salt Lake County rather. When we moved into Rose Park, I became friends with the two girls in this family, and I recently learned from one of them that their mother and father had settled on buying a different home in the area in about 1952. Their mother was scrubbing the kitchen floor in preparation for the family moving in when their real estate agent showed up at the door and told them that they could not have this house after all. The neighbors had gotten together and they had opposed a Japanese family living next to them. The realtor found the home for them on my street and told everyone they were Hawaiian, which apparently made a difference. No one objected to their occupying that home, and seventy years later, the mother still lives in that house. As far as I know, Rose Park had no restrictive covenants written into the deeds, but discrimination still existed. Growing up in Salt Lake, I, like many others, really wasn’t aware of racial restrictions or housing restrictions. And it wasn’t until I began studying Utah’s Black history about twenty years ago that I learned about the 1939 controversy and these other attempts to keep neighborhoods all white. Early on in my effort to understand the lives and experiences of Utah’s earliest Black residents. I found some collections of oral histories. The Marriott Library Special Collections at the U of U holds a number of oral histories by Black Utahns. And in addition, BYU’s L. Tom Perry Special Collections in the Lee Library, and the Church History Library, hold a few of them. I really fell in love with these oral histories as I started to read them. The reason I think they’re so important is that they allow us to hear the voices of the interviewees. They’re immediate, they’re unpolished, and sometimes they’re frustrating because I want to ask questions the interviewer doesn’t ask. I think I first learned about the 1939 episode reading Mary Lucille Perkins Bankhead’s histories. Nichol’s just told us tonight that she was actually there during one of these oral histories as it was being recorded. Mary Lucille Perkins Bankhead’s account of what happened is central to understanding both the facts and how the Black community responded in 1939. Okay, now for a little bit of ancient history. Utah’s population has traditionally been made up of people of British, Scandinavian, and Western European descent. The Black population has been very small, amounting to only 1% of the total by even 2010. Many of the original Black settlers were enslaved to Mormon converts. Many people listening tonight probably know the name of Jane Manning James, who was a devout Black convert, and who with her family came to Salt Lake as a free woman. But since the Black population was so very small, members of the early families intermarried. Mary Lucille Perkins had roots in the Green Flake, Frank Perkins, and Jane Manning James families. And then, when she married Thomas Leroy Bankhead, she married into a family who were descended from another early Black enslaved family, the Bankheads. In 1888, Jane James’s son, Sylvester James, bought a tract of farmland in Mill Creek, after the Chambers and LaGrone [spelling?] had begun farming there. Sylvester Perkins, Lucille’s father, bought a portion of the James land in 1893. So Lucille Perkins was born on that land in Mill Creek, and she lived there her entire life, surrounded by her extended family. Her oral histories, together with those of other members of the family, brought their experiences to life. And through those pages, I felt I got to know people that I never could meet. Cliche or not, Lucille came to life in those interviews. I sensed her strength, her pride, and her common-sense approach to living. She told about when, in the fall of 1939, she heard that someone was trying to force all the Black families and residents of Salt Lake County to sell their homes and relocate to an area just south of downtown Salt Lake. Lucille Bankhead was having none of that. She and several members of her sewing club organized a protest and went downtown in a wagon pulled by a horse to voice their opposition. They intended to retain their property. They’d owned it for many decades, and were not letting it go. Her vivid retelling of the story made a big impression on me. Her fierce defense of her rights as a property owner shines through her narrative. It was not until many years after I first heard of this woman that I realized that I had known a few members of her extended family, actually since high school. Several years ago, I reached out to one of them, Nichol’s stepmother in fact, and she was kind enough to introduce me to other members of the family. They welcomed me as if I am one of the family. I don’t know if I have adopted them or they have adopted me, but either case, it’s good to be with them. It’s been an honor and it’s been a privilege to spend time with them. I’ve heard about their family histories. I’ve learned about their legacy and the pride that they have in their family heritage. Their ancestors have not received the recognition many other pioneers have received through the years. But that’s beginning to change, and it’s long overdue. Nichol and Kellen have graciously agreed to participate tonight so they can talk about their family history and their perspectives on the Black experience in Utah. Nichol, would you like to say anything at this point? NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Well, all I would say is thank you. And yes, we have adopted you, and we’re glad you’ve adopted us. I think, to your point, and we can talk about Lucille later. But I take pride in the fact that both Kellen and I really value where we live, in the state of Utah. And we know that’s historical in our family roots. And I find it interesting that we both work in areas of land use planning, and housing and transportation, and really those fundamental values that we saw coming from our family. So I’m excited to answer anyone’s questions I can tell you about Lucille. I think I have her spit and fire a little bit in me, and it gets me in trouble sometimes. But I’m happy to be here and really answer any questions people have about my family, and also the work that I’m doing to help keep that legacy alive. TONYA REITER: Well, speaking of the legacy, did the memory of that 1939 event—I assume it lived on in your family? Did you hear about it through the years? NICHOL BOURDEAUX: I think the most that we heard was her protectiveness of land, of her area, of what was hers or ours, because it was really ours. We think of the LaGrones, and we were all one big family there. And I don’t remember hearing that particular story until I started reading—because like you said, I was there at one of these oral histories, and another one I think, I’ve met Dr. Coleman, as a young girl, and I just didn’t understand why she was telling them. Why did they come see her? It was like every time there was some new researcher there. But I think what it kind of cemented in me was understanding that that was a pride in her and that this is where it came from. So once I started researching it like you, after she was gone, like what did they say? What did she say? That’s when I learned more about that piece, but particularly that incident. TONYA REITER: Well, the Mill Creek area is interesting, because, correct me if you have a different perspective, but it seems to me that there were never really enough Black people in Salt Lake to—I mean, for a period of time, maybe in the late 1800s when the soldiers were here, it seems like there was quite a bit going on. There were four black newspapers, there were some other things. But after that, it doesn’t seem like there was ever really a consolidated Black community in Salt Lake. But I attempted to say that Mill Creek kind of is that place to a small extent, because there were so many in the family that lived there. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Yeah. So I would think for me, and we talked about a little bit what the Utah Multicultural piece is looking at. But I’ve always said, I’d go to other cities and there was a concentrated Black community. And so I felt like there was family. But then really, when you wanted to meet people still in the Black race, Ogden, you had the west side of Salt Lake City. You had Latino community, so it was very diverse to me that there wasn’t really a Black community like you would see in a large metropolitan community. Like California, for instance, I was like, Oh, this is different. Growing up, born and raised in Utah, I saw significant difference. But so we always saw it as this is just the family. But I can see why that would be concentrated. I mean, at one point, probably even before our time, there were several families in that area, and descendants that happened to be there. TONYA REITER: Yeah. And happily, at least one descendants still lives on Evergreen Avenue. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Yeah! Actually, I think two. We have the LaGrones, and then my first cousin lives in a portion of Lucille’s original property. TONYA REITER: Oh, that’s great. I like the continuity, especially now. Kellen, you had an experience that you wanted to talk about, I think, about housing and your family’s personal experience with that. KELLEN PERKINS: Oh, there’s a lot of experiences, I could talk about housing. Oh man! [laughs] So again, going to your point about community. And I think one of the things Nichol talked about is us viewing the whole Millcreek area on Evergreen Avenue as one family. My memories from that are, the family reunions that we had, we’d basically have one big block party, and tents. And Mary Lucille’s property, along with her brother, who was my great grandfather’s property, became one large plot and people were running all over. So that is a memory I have that speaks to what you point out as community. It’s interesting that you talked about Rose Park earlier, because that’s where I grew up, and then would spend time going to what they called “the country,” because that’s what Millcreek was going out to the country. And being a Rose Parker and living close to the city, I’d never thought too much about the lack of diversity in the city until my latter years where we moved to Harvard/Yale, and then I started learning about the covenants that were in that area that you speak of. And then I later learned, through my real estate career, Rose Park actually did have those covenants, and I have talked about them in the past. Similar covenants, which is very interesting, because as you know, it’s now one of the most diverse areas of town, which could be celebrated. But it also goes back to the 1939 incident, right? Like, eventually, it wasn’t incidents like you experienced where they wouldn’t sell to a Japanese family, it was the only place that they would sell to people of color, or attempted to get people of color to go to. And Nichol and I have talked a lot offline about redlining and the different ways that that happened in our city. It happened then, and unfortunately, I’d hate to say, it still happens now. In different ways. It comes out in different ways in my industry. And because of those incidents, I would say that there’s been a lot of stuff, going back to 1939 and beyond, and then coming forward. And then looking at the stuff that was happening, and looking at the segregation and the items that we’ve talked about, you’ll see that it’s created a large gap in generational wealth, even for those who’ve been here. Nichol and I are lucky enough to come from the family that we do. We talked about the Black community. A lot of the Black community ended up in Ogden, because they came with the railroad, and property values there are significantly different than what they are in Salt Lake County. So when you look at these issues, and you take them back to what happened in 1939, we’ve got a real ugly history here. And something that I think some are willing to acknowledge. And Nichol can speak to that, working on the inner workings. But I think also, from my perspective in working in the industry I work in, I think there are a lot of people who don’t see the repercussions of our previous actions. And when I say “our,” I mean, our society’s, of course. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: I’d just like to add on to that if I could. One of the things I think Kellen brings out is, and one thing you brought up, Tonya, is that we’ve owned land. And also, we’ve come from free Blacks before the Emancipation Proclamation. And that, to me is a privilege that not all Blacks in this community or others have had. Kellen and I are both lucky to be as successful as we are. But there are a lot of reasons behind that. He can talk about his grandparents. Most of the women in our family read and could write and went to school, had access to education and homeownership or landownership. And that’s where the wealth and the privilege and what’s helped us get to where we are. So I think people think, well, we’re all fine now. But there’s a reason why, and not everybody had those opportunities to your point. KELLEN PERKINS: Yeah. and I’d like to add—oh, go ahead, Tanya. TONYA REITER: Well, go ahead. You say first. KELLEN PERKINS: I was going to say I’d like to add that this is not exclusive to—we’re all very well aware that this has happened all over the country. But Nichol and I were talking earlier today about the fact that one of the ways that it’s happened is through planning and zoning, and also through transportation—train tracks. You talked about Rose Park. You know that if you go from Rose Park to Poplar Grove, you hit a train track. If you try to hit Rose Park to downtown, there’s a train track. So you’re locked into one section of the town. And that has been prohibitive for many people in general, but many people of color because this is where the communities have landed. TONYA REITER: When you were talking about landownership, it reminded me that in the collection of oral histories at the U, the man’s name escapes me right this minute, but he was a young man who met Mary Lucille Perkins Bankhead’s children. I think somehow they either knew each other from school, or I don’t know if any of those kids boxed together. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Oh, they did box. My great uncle was in Golden Gloves. So yeah, he did box. TONYA REITER: Yeah. So somehow they knew them. And this young man had come from outside of Utah, and he and his mother had come to Utah and settled here. And he was invited out to the Bankhead property in Millcreek, where he said it was idyllic for him. Because he could run, the boys would just run wild on this big lot, and they would be out all afternoon, just doing all kinds of fun boy stuff. And he said it hit him that he had never known Black people who had home and landownership where he had come from, and that even later on as an adult, he thought that was such a fundamental thing for him to learn that it was possible. And that’s what the Bankheads stood for for him. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: I love that story. I told you, I grew up with Lucille all the time— Perkins—and she was my great grandmother. She watched me basically when my mother was working. So I was with her on weekends, and I loved to stay with her. And there’s something about having that land. And she would tell me about Mill Creek that went through the back of the LaGrones’ house, that would go there, and they’d have asparagus and raspberries and currants. And to Kellen’s point, we really did run free. It was back and forth. And having access to nature as well. It’s a thing. I would just go climb a tree all day, and then she’d make me pick apricots. But there’s something about that, that not a lot of people of color have access to that or have land that is kind of nature. They fished right out of there, there was tons of gardening, and a fruit orchard that I hate, but all of that. And there was still irrigation that she was pulling when I was little to get water in there. So I get to that point about having access, and I think we’re privileged to have that. I never knew not owning property. My grandparents, all of them owned it. So it is something that we need to think about. And it does go for generational wealth. I do want to second that on Kellen’s point. KELLEN PERKINS: Yeah. Running wild on that land was something that has carried down through the generations. Even myself, I took out a bush [laughs] running crazy and playing tag. I think I was seven and I was washing cars and I accidentally put the car into drive. And there was a shrub that went between my great grandparents’ house and Nichol’s great grandparents’ house, and I ran over—like fully over—a section of that. And you would have thought I’d murdered someone. [laughter] There was such pride in this land. And I’m a Millcreek resident now. And I think, Tonya, you were there when they honored another one of our family members, where the city center is going to go. And there was something special about—there IS something special about being here in Millcreek and seeing what’s going on, seeing that they’re trying to make some changes. Over 150 years later, after our family has been here, there’s still so much change that needs to be made. That is both empowering and sad. It’s just part of our evolution as humans to understand. I listened to Angela Davis give a speech once and she said, “Whenever there’s a movement, you have to look backwards to see who’s left behind.” And I feel that we’re starting to come to the head where we’re really looking, or attempting to look, at who’s come behind. And as we look at housing prices being the highest that they’ve been in decades, it’s really important for us to look at our previous history, and where we’ve been, and how we can avoid doing that in the future, so that we can avoid creating—as we’re looking for options for affordable housing, tackling zoning laws, and access for everyone, we have to be careful. And we have to keep going back to stories like the 1939 incident, so that we can avoid having things like that happen in the future. TONYA REITER: The event that calendar refers to is the Millcreek mayor, and probably a committee, decided that they wanted to honor one of the Black farmers, Samuel Chambers, who had been a real feature of Millcreek for many, many years. He and his wife, Amanda, came from the South and built a very successful farm, grew a lot of berries from what I understand, a lot of currants. And so Millcreek decided to name one of the main streets in the new development Chambers Avenue, and invited some of the Chambers descendants, of which Kellen and Nichol are, to come to that event too. Kellen, I wanted to ask you something else, because—it’s a year and a half old, but I noticed a little blurb in KSL News that said a woman had discovered that her deed in Ogden had racial restrictions in it, and her intent was to get those removed. And I think she mentioned a bill or a new Utah state law that made that possible. I think her deed was from 1948, and it was near Harrison Avenue in Ogden. Do you ever run into that when you’re doing real estate? KELLEN PERKINS: Every day. Every day. In fact, if you ever sign on a loan with a title company, when you sign, every title company has a form that you have to sign that recognizes that there is language in the covenants that no longer applies today, that is illegal for them to enforce. But it’s there, you have to acknowledge that you know it’s there. And now people are creating laws and attempting to create laws to get rid of the language completely, get rid of the covenants, and require cities and neighborhoods to redo them. And there’s been controversy around that, Because some people say it doesn’t matter, It’s from the past, why should it matter? And then there’s those of us who, pardon, are privileged enough that we look at the fact that— you know, Nichol and I have kids that are the same age, and when they buy a home, they’re going to have to see this language and it’s going to have to explain again, and it’s just kind of a generational, a lot of people don’t understand generational pain. And that is something that we experience daily when we talk about these issues. The other side of my family is from the South, my father’s side, and I’ve spent a lot of time going down there. And when I was going to one of their properties, they told me not to drive at night because of a sundown town. I’m from Utah, I’d forgotten what that was. And then we got to talking about how property ownership is down there. And Nichol and I have had conversations with—as you know, knowing the history of our family, there’s a section of our family that did not get freed and did not come to Utah. And the life down there is so different. So when we talk about these issues in Salt Lake, this is just a minor—it’s major, but it’s a minor scope of what was happening all over the country. Go ahead, Nichol. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: No, go ahead. I was going to add something but go ahead. KELLEN PERKINS: So in issues like this, we look at—Salt Lake has been one city that has done it. I spent two months in Dallas last year and learned a lot about how they segregated neighborhoods. Even, there’s a neighborhood called State & Allen, and it was where the wealthy Blacks lived. But when segregationists started coming in and saying, “No, we don’t want this area,” they put freeways through it. And that has been pretty common throughout our history. And if you start going through and looking at how neighborhoods of people of color are segregated, you’ll see those freeways just about in any city you go to. In St. Louis, you’re let off the freeway where they only let Blacks live. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: I was just going to comment on one thing about the covenants. And this is even personally for me, living where I do, and then speaking to other people of color who want to leave those covenants as a record in there so that we don’t forget that this is the history. And I understand the trauma like Kellen said. It is there. But there are people that want it there so that we don’t forget what we did in the past. So I think it’s kind of a twofold. I have a copy of the covenants for this area so that I remember that at one point in time, I’m not supposed to be here. And I think it’s just important for me to understand all the sacrifices that had to be made to even get me to my point. It’s not just, I showed up, and life was wonderful. There was a lot of sacrifices and a lot of work for my family to get here. And the other thing I was just going to point out on transportation and transit, of course, is near and dear to my heart. We really, in this state and everywhere—and I will have to say I support this administration with the federal government—is really looking at these things. And with the infrastructure bill, it passes with the budget, there is a provision that you can take out these barriers to communities and produce equity. So things like rail stations that circle communities of color, or low income communities. So to Kellen’s point, as we are moving forward, I think this is really at the forefront of the inequities that we’ve set from our history, and how we can change our transportation, change our housing and our planning, so that we don’t set it up for the future and continue, because it’s a continuous process. So I just want to touch on those two things. TONYA REITER: That is great. Total change of direction for just a second here. Your great grandma, great aunt, talked about belonging to the Camellia Arts Club. Do you know anything about that club? I’ve asked a few people in the family, and I get the idea it was maybe a sewing club. But do you know any more than that? NICHOL BOURDEAUX: I don’t know any more than a sewing club. What I can tell you about Lucille is, not knowing this as a kid, but knowing art was important to her. So even in her elderly years, I would go with her, and we’d go to community centers and she would do painting. And then she did quilting. Like she always had those big quilt racks up. So I think it was a quilting circle, that community. But one thing about her, she set those things up a lot. Like she was one of the first Relief Societies for the Black community. So it could have been something [laughs] she set up! I just want to be honest, I know that’s who she was. But I was looking it up to see what the reference was. I know she worked with the Gregory Center, if you’re familiar with that. She was part of getting that up, and I thought that’s where it was. But this is all like, pulling it out of my brain. So we’d have to do a lot of work on that. But I will tell you that art was really important to her. One of the last things, as she was passing, she did those California Raisins and painted them, and I thought it was going to be World War III between my great aunt and uncles about who got these ceramic things! TONYA REITER: California Raisins! NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Yeah! They were like painted. This is going back into the Eighties, but it was just hilarious that they were fighting, not over property, not over china, over the California Raisins. So I think art was a big part of her life. TONYA REITER: Yeah, throughout the family probably. Well, I think you’ve done a good job of answering this question already. But Jed wanted to ask you about how your pioneer ancestry, how your family history and your roots—you’ve talked a little bit about that. But do you think that those things have really influenced what you are doing now with your lives? You’ve kind of hit on that, but tell us a bit more if you can. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Well, I’ll tell you a little bit about it. I think it’s emboldened me. And I think that’s allowed me to be really involved. But you heard my jobs, they all circle around really caring for this community and thinking about my fourth great grandfather coming here with the pioneers and settling the land. I feel like that is kind of intrinsically in me. I care about Salt Lake City, I care about how community is built. And I think that all comes from knowing all the work and struggle that got us here. And I have lived in North Carolina. And that’s where actually Green Flake was from. And it’s a different community. Kellen alluded to this. And so a lot of it is accepting the gifts that I had, and the opportunities I had, based on all that family moving and doing the hard work, because as you know, it was hard work. And they didn’t have the life I have. So I think it has set me in there, and to really respect land, respect that it was taken land. We didn’t come here to nobody, right? We have our Indigenous people that were living here. But just respecting that, and respecting what it takes to hopefully have a future for other people that want to be here. It’s a beautiful place. So I think that’s really what I see is how much I care for nature and where we live. TONYA REITER: Thanks. Jed, were you saying something? JEDEDIAH ROGERS: Well, no, this has been terrific. Thank you so much. Maybe to continue on with that last question. You’ve referenced generational wealth, you’ve referenced generational pain. There’s a wonderful image that we published in Tonya’s article that shows three or four generations of Bankheads. So I’m just struck by—this family in particular has sort of generational memories going back, and I think you’ve spoken a bit to that. How do you maintain that as an extended family that has obviously grown? Not everyone, I assume, lives now in Millcreek. How do you continue to maintain those deep ties that you’ve created over the generations? NICHOL BOURDEAUX: I think this is a great question for Kellen to. It’s hard. We’re going to have Tonya help us. The biggest struggle for me is I was really at that gap from my great grandmother. And so I saw the older generation, Kellen too, at the end. But we had family reunions of 200 people. And he’s my third cousin, but he’s my cousin. And so we were so connected, and know everybody and where everybody is. I think that’s hard for me to let go of people that are in their twenties, and like, I don’t know my other cousins. And I think to your point, it’s really a struggle. I think we’ve tried to make sure we have a reunion. It’s important to my family. It’s important to my cousins. Kellen knows that we’re trying to make sure that we keep that legacy, and hopefully people come and want to learn more about where they come from. I think it’s just really important. Kellen? KELLEN PERKINS: I have to agree 100% with what Nichol. Jed, more to the point, we tend to host a large family reunion every three years or so. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Tonya’s been there. KELLEN PERKINS: Tonya’s been to a couple of them now! [unclear 44:24] And we try to make the event where it would be enjoyable for everyone. So from young to old, from those who are more economically blessed to those who might be challenged, we try to make it something that has a little bit of everything. We’ve gone on cruises with a hundred and—how many, Nichol? There were 114 of us on that cruise I think? Something like that. We’ve had barbecues here in Salt Lake with 200 attendees. So we try to keep it close. And then we do formal events during that time, honoring many people in their accomplishments or groups of people in their accomplishments. So we try to keep it alive. But as time has gone on, it gets a little bit more challenging each time. Because we honestly, even at our current ages, we meet people all the time that we find are third or fourth or fifth cousins, and then they feel left out. So you try to reach, you just do this and hope that as many people as possible come in and everyone gets a piece of the legacy. TONYA REITER: I’ve got something to add to that reunion story. The way you know you’ve gotten to the right place is you see everybody maybe in a green shirt that has every surname from the family on it. Like the Green Flake, LaGrone, Chambers and so on. And it has all those names on the shirt. And you don’t really know who’s who—I don’t. They do. I don’t—I don’t know which family’s which but I don’t care because they are all so connected. KELLEN PERKINS: Tonya, to be fair, none of us really do. Outside of the core people, Nichol and I will tell you we don’t know who’s who. After a while you’re just like, “Come on, baby, come on in and get a get a snack.” TONYA REITER: One other experience that I had that I think sort of solidifies this whole idea of the pride in the family is, when the LDS Church had the Be One celebration, and invited—I think they did extend invitations to some of your family members. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Oh yeah, we attended. We worked with Juan Becerra of the church. I don’t know if you know him, but it was part of the engagement for the church and we attended. TONYA REITER: So I happened to be leaving or something and ran into them in the lobby. And they wanted a picture taken of all the family members that were there that night. And so I ended up with the camera, and I clicked the picture, and I noticed there was a man behind me clicking the same picture. And I know that he had no idea who he was taking a picture of. And their cousin Juanita yelled and said, “Do you know who you just took a picture of?” And he said no. And she yelled, “It’s the Green Flakes!” And I just thought that explained it all, the heritage and the pride in that heritage. JEDEDIAH ROGERS: And yet your family are the founding members of Millcreek, the oldest generation there essentially, right? And yet, Kellen, I’m just struck by your comment that changes still need to be made. I don’t think we’re surprised by that. But I was wondering if you’d be willing to speak in more detail about what those changes might be? KELLEN PERKINS: Well, since we’re talking about race and segregation, I mean Millcreek, up until five years ago, when they expanded the boundaries of Millcreek city itself, Millcreek was still a predominantly white middle class community, and with pockets of minorities, often in low income housing that was brought in to the east side by force. And so it’s now taking those properties, those people living in those communities, and assimilating them, not just giving us a sign. And I said this to the mayor last year: it’s less about a sign. I honestly don’t care whether my family’s name is on a sign. I want people to have access to equal education. Families that have been here in Millcreek such as ours, other families, we’ve had the opportunity to take advantage of the rising housing values. If you compare it to some of the other areas that were predominantly where people of color bought homes, the home that I grew up in has a max value of about $500,000 versus the home that now sits on Mary Lucille’s property and my grandma Sammy’s property, which is about $1.5 million at this point. So three times as much value, which then gets to get used to help their family members along the way. They have access to better schools. So I think that this is where—I know Mill Creek has a program called Millcreek Promises. And it’s talking about expanding that. And really giving options to these families, giving resources that will help these children that come from these families have access going forward, and potentially having the same opportunities Nichol and I have been afforded through the legacy of our family. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: You know, Jed, I’d like to add on that, too, just for a personal story about generational trauma and understanding where you come from. When I refinanced my home, I made sure that there were no personal pictures that showed that I was a Black woman. And it’s been shown across the country that your appraisal will go down almost, what is it, 25 to 30 to 50% lower if they know that there’s somebody of color in that house. And so I wasn’t told to do that. I didn’t do that because of a zoning or ordinance or law. But that’s that historical kind of understanding of perceptions and bias and how that keeps going. Because I’ve had people even say, my white friends, “Do you want me to be there to meet the appraiser,” so that that isn’t a bias that goes into my value of my home, because it’s a Black woman. So I think to your point about what changes need to be made, I need to be able to feel like I don’t need to do that, that my value of my home is going to be regardless of if it’s Tonya there, you there, or Kellen or I there, that that value stays consistent. And that’s going to take some work. KELLEN PERKINS: And to Nichol’s point with refinancing, there have been a few large loan institutions that have come out and lost lawsuits showing that they have indeed offered different pricing to equal on paper, but different, races. Meaning, if my credit is the exact same as my white counterpart, I still get a higher interest rate because I’ve marked the box Black on that paper. And there are several large institutions that have lost lawsuits in the last 10 years. So this isn’t past. This is recent. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: No. I will tell you, my first house, I actually received the settlement from Wells Fargo, my husband and I, because—we didn’t know, it wasn’t a big settlement, by the way!” But it was because they had to pay out to anybody that had color on there. And we were a biracial couple at the time. And so we received a few dollars, and that was in North Carolina. But yeah, I totally forgot about that. But that’s what happened in our first home that we bought. KELLEN PERKINS: The changes that need to happen globally, but also in Millcreek city, and in Salt Lake City. I also think that more people are becoming aware of these issues from the past and acknowledging the way that they affect us going forward. I think a lot of people like to look at issues, like what we’ve talked about with my great aunts and the segregation as issues of the past, but they don’t really realize how that has affected families going forward. Entire generations of children may not have gone to the same schools that they might have had access to, for anything other than the fact that they had a different skin tone, something that they can’t change. But we tend to dumb this down in Utah. I see it all the time. Nichol and I both travel extensively, and every time I come back to Utah, it feels like Oh yeah, this is where I live again. Now, I love Utah. I’ve moved away, I’ve come back, I settled here, I’ll be here for quite the time. But every time I come back, I remember, Oh, we still have so much work to do. JEDEDIAH ROGERS: Well, thank you. I know that you’ve already touched on this. I’m wondering over the last ten years, let’s say—Kellen, you would know the exact numbers, but property values have doubled in, what, the last eight years or something? So what kind of impact is gentrification having on communities of color, you know, rising property value? If you own a home property value is great, I guess, ostensibly if it goes up. But you’ve got higher taxes to deal with, and maybe it makes it more difficult for a family to move back into areas where you had once grown up. KELLEN PERKINS: Gentrification is a challenge. It’s a very complex issue, because there are positive things that come from it, such as, the things that people who have lived in that community have wanted for an extended amount of time start showing up. But now they come at the cost of people not being able to come back into the community. So we’ll use Rose Park, for instance. There are now more than one coffee shop—growing up, I only knew one coffee shop in Rose Park. Now there are multiple coffee shops in Rose Park, and more coming. And we all know that coffee shops create community, regardless of you whether or not you drink coffee, and so it’s starting to see those things. But gentrification also hurts those who did not get a slice of the pie, who did not have homeownership, and now they’re forced out. And where do they go now? If a community like Rose Park was affordable to them, but they didn’t have a car, so they were able to easily get into the city, now they’re forced out of the city. And it creates a larger challenge. And Nichol can talk to that about transportation, and the issues surrounding that. But property values, you already said this, they’re great for those who already own. They’re a challenge—and they’re a challenge for even those who own who want to move up. If you bought a small starter home, the first home I bought in Rose Park, I paid $87,000 for it. It was worth about $140. At the time, it was a bank owned, I was able to fix it up over time and make it something and I sold it years later for quite a profit. But if I didn’t have that equity to move forward somewhere else, and I was trying to buy into Rose Park, that same house is going to cost me $500,000. I just sold the one across the street from it for $465. So I know it’s going to cost me $500,000 to buy the same house I paid $87,000 for. So if you look at that from a standpoint of families trying to come back, or the kids trying to be close to their parents, it’s almost impossible. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Jed, two things on gentrification: Salt Lake City is doing a study on this, especially around Rose Park, North temple, Glendale area, to see—it may be too late. If you’ve ever gone to Austin, you’ll see what happens when everything gets gentrified. I love Austin, but you can definitely see what happens when development properties come up. So stay tuned for that, if you care about this, you want to participate in that piece. The other thing that you mentioned, and please don’t quote me on this, but I think it’s something that we have to look at, the legislature has a law right now about land and taxes and losing your property—and don’t quote me on saying this right. But before, you had a right to get your property back, now it’s open. And so it goes back to that point of, we do have a history of someone that has lost their property from not paying their taxes. And now instead of being notified, or you being able to do it, it goes out for bid. And so I think those are the things like you’re talking about, those kinds of laws, those kinds of things that we have to watch as a community to make sure that we’re not pushing elderly people out that are on social security, that have to pay taxes now on something that’s ten times what they paid, and they can’t pay for that land anymore. KELLEN PERKINS: To that point, we often hear people, now that we have an influx of people coming from California, we complain about the Californians that they’re the ones driving the prices up. And there’s actually a fallacy to that. There are so many people coming from all over. But one thing that I think California does incredibly well with property tax is that the taxes on a property are always based on its last sold value. So if you buy a property now, your property tax bill will change minimally over the years, which helps low income and senior individuals stay in the homes that they purchase, which is really important to what we’re talking about in generational wealth. Something I saw—and I have first hand experience of this—I have friends who bought a property that had not been sold since 1920-something in California, so the property taxes were $3,000 total in California, and then when they closed on the property at a price significantly higher than what it would have sold for them, now the property taxes are $26,000 a year. So if you had someone who was low income buying a property to get hit with $2,200 a month, or $2,700 a month more per month on top of their mortgage than they were expecting, then obviously, that’s going to push them out of housing again. JEDEDIAH ROGERS: I’ll just invite anyone who’s listening in to submit a question if you have one. Maybe to sort of wrap things up, I’d love to hear one last little story about your families if there’s something that maybe hasn’t been shared, or that you remember that goes down in family history or memory, we’d love to hear about it. That’d be for all three of you. Tonya, you’ve done lots of research. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Tonya probably has a story about our family, yeah. TONYA REITER: I captured one story that I think is just a really sweet story. And I don’t remember, Nichol, exactly if it was your mother or someone else that said they remember staying with their grandma, with Mary Lucille, and that she would be feeding her strawberries from her garden with cream and combing her hair and telling her stories about the family. And it was such a sweet memory that she had of that happening. That’s one of my favorites. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: That might have been Betty. So in that picture, it would have been the baby in the picture that you have in your article. I bet you that was Betty Juanita. And so she is the eldest grandkid to Lucille. Right? Yes, that’s right. I had to go through my brain. [laughter] Yes, she is the eldest. And so you see those generations of women there. And I think one thing I would just tell you for me, like you have that photo. And that strength of those women—and I didn’t meet my great great grandmother, but everybody else in that photo raised me. And I remember seeing that in my fourth grade Utah book and saying—was it fourth? No, it was eighth. I think it might have been eighth grade. And I was like, “That’s my family!” And they’re like, “No.” I’m like, “Yes, it is. It’s Aunt Ruth and Annie!” and just having the pride of that. But knowing the strength that comes from that’s really been great to me, I appreciate it. And I appreciate us taking the time to really honor them. That means a lot to me. TONYA REITER: Kellen, you have any cool stories that you can share? I know we got some that we probably shouldn’t! [laughter] KELLEN PERKINS: I was actually just sitting here and thinking about it. I think what is cool to me is being reminded—so earlier, I made reference to the cruise. And the cruise was the first family reunion after a long break. And so it was very empowering to get on that cruise ship—and Nichol speaks about the women in our family. I mean, we have some strong men, but this family has been carried by the women. It really truly has been carried by the women. And so getting on and sitting down in a casino chair and playing until two in the morning with my great aunts and listening to their stories and watching them light up because they’re catching up with cousins they haven’t talked to or haven’t seen over the years, I think that was really powerful. Still is a powerful memory, especially because like I said, we had taken a probably a ten year break from reunions at that point. JEDEDIAH ROGERS: Well, I think I speak for everyone. It’s a real honor to hear from the three of you. Thank you so much for taking the hour to share a bit about your family and your thoughts about housing and transit and race. And I do want to refer folks to Tonya’s piece in the latest issue of UHQ because it really does shed light on such an important episode. I think, Tonya, you do a really good job with it. Also bringing in sort of the legacy of this family, and then telling the broader story, that is a Utah story about race and the struggles that we’ve had with it. So that is in the winter issue, and I hope that we can continue this conversation. But it’s great to, Kellen and Nichol, meet the two of you, so thank you once again. KELLEN PERKINS: Thank you. NICHOL BOURDEAUX: Thank you. And Tonya, we’ll see you at our next reunion I’m sure. TONYA REITER: I’ll be there! As long as I get the invitation I’ll be there! KELLEN PERKINS: We’ll see you guys. Have a wonderful evening. END OF PANEL