Know Your Price - Andre M. Perry

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and only encouraged by the rigor she demands of me. Thank you. In addition, Brentin Mock, staff writer at CityLab, edited the first draft of the manuscript, providing critical feedback and recommendations around structure and composition that were invaluable. He’s been an editor of mine since I started writing in popular media and has been instrumental in my development as a writer. Thank you.

      I’m grateful for Amy Liu, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, for extending an invitation to write a book chapter about education in New Orleans post-Katrina that was published in 2011. Amy would eventually hire me to join the Brookings team in 2017 as a David M. Rubenstein Fellow. My colleagues at Metro have supported this work since my arrival. In particular, I thank Alan Berube for reading an early draft of the book and providing substantive comments and criticism, which strengthened the final version. My Rubenstein siblings Jenny Schuetz and Dany Bahar helped me conceptualize the housing study. Joe Parilla and Sifan Liu’s research on Birmingham proved to be invaluable. Mark Muro and Bill Frey are incredibly positive and motivating colleagues. I thank them for always leaving their door open to me.

      I work with a wonderful team, for whom I am deeply grateful. From my start at Brookings, research analyst David Harshbarger has provided invaluable support during my journey. David started with me as a part-time intern, but developed a deep appreciation, forged by hard work, for my Black-majority cities work. We all benefit from his dedication to facts, justice, and coding. Not long after I met David, I befriended Jonathan Rothwell, principal economist at Gallup. Jonathan’s analytic chops are unmatched. Jonathan helps me operationalize the empirical models I have in my head and enhances them. His skills are only surpassed by his kindness. I discovered Jonathan to be my brother from another mother. Anthony Fiano coordinates all of my external engagements and media requests. He makes the time for me to generate research while I engage the public. His enthusiasm is contagious. Rounding out the team are several interns who have spent some time with me: Marissa Marshall, Ally Hardebeck, Christine MacKrell, Ananya Hariharan, Rehan Hasan, and Alex Thomas are the future of public policy.

      The communications team at Brookings Metro has been vital to my success. I want to send a special shout-out to David Lanham for his careful editing and project management.

      The staff at the Hechinger Report invested in me as writer and a person. Liz Willen, Sarah Garland, Sarah Carr, Jennifer Shaw, Jayati Vora, and the rest of the team all played a significant role in my development. Many of the ideas found in this book germinated from my weekly column in this wonderful publication. In addition, I’ve been lucky to have some incredible editors along the way, including Kirsten West-Savali of Essence magazine and Adam Kushner at the Washington Post. And when it comes to helping me get to the spirit of a matter, I turn to Rev. Osagyefo Sekou. Thank you, brother.

      I’d also like to thank the teachers of Wilkinsburg and Pittsburgh public schools for their investment in me and others. My undergraduate faculty at Allegheny College instilled the writing and analytic fundamentals I’ve carried with me throughout my professional career. My graduate school faculty at the University of Maryland College Park, including Kenneth Strike, Sharon Fries-Brit, and Betty Malen, all contributed mightily to my development. I also need to acknowledge Dan Hartley, who gave me editorial insights throughout the writing process. I also thank my grad school colleagues for supporting me along the way toward completion: Shaun Gittens, Mark Lopez, Jeffrey Pegram, Jeff Van Collins, Takeyah Young, Rashida Govan, and numerous others. Go Terps!

      This work and the book would not have been possible without the generous support of The Heinz Endowments, especially Grant Oliphant, Rob Stephanie, and Karen Abrams. Other folks in Pittsburgh who were instrumental in developing the book include Michael Skirpan and Community Forge, the Johnston School; Hosanna House; Mayor of Wilkinsburg Marita Garrett; William Bates, president of the American Institute of Architects; Tracy Evans; and Gordon Manker of the Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation.

      The Detroit Artist Test Lab, Orlando Bailey, Chase Cantrell, Lauren Hood, Austin Black II, Tahirih Ziegler, Anika Goss-Foster, and SpaceLab Detroit all deserve my thanks for welcoming me into their communities and providing me with the data, knowledge, and lived experiences that made this book and the work more broadly what it is today.

      In Birmingham, Alabama, my thanks go out to Brian K. Rice, Barnett Wright, Isaac Cooper, Janae Pierre, Andrew Yeager (and the rest of the team at WBHM), Deon Gordon, Brian Hilson, Waymond Jackson, Dr. Perry Ward, the Birmingham Business Alliance, Bettina Byrd-Giles, Brian Hawkins, Rob Zeigler, and Mark Martin. A special note of thanks goes out the Mayor of Birmingham Randall Woodfin and his staff, who are truly making an impact in the city.

      Of course, to the people of New Orleans I owe a great amount of gratitude, including Flozell Daniels, Sharon Clark, James Meza, Jamar McKneely, Doris Hicks, Renette Dejoie Hall, Jenni Lawson, Norman Robinson, Rhonda Kalifey-Aluise, Chuck Perkins, #TakeEmDownNOLA, Victory Bar, Camille Whitworth, Daniel Victory, Maeve Wallace, and anyone who has attended one of our house parties.

      INTRODUCTION

      The Assets of Home

      “He’s not your son,” pronounced Uncle Hotsy. “I am.”

      It was an ultimatum to the nearly eighty-year-old Elsie Mae Boyd.

      “I’m your flesh and blood.” Looking through me, he continued. “He can’t stay here.”

      Elsie Mae may not have been my mom by blood, but that’s what we called her—me, a scrawny, nappy-headed boy, and a dozen other kids who had found refuge in her yellow brick single-family home. She was in her sixties when I was born, and she had raised me since birth.

      Mom listened to her eldest daughter Dot and the son she gave birth to make their case that spring day. She was too old to “watch” a house full of kids, they said, especially when one of them was as boisterous, freewheeling, and insolent as me. I did get suspended from school on occasion, mainly for mouthing off to teachers and students. Mom prepared her share of ice packs because of the “scraps” I found myself in. To Hotsy and Dot, I represented trouble. To Mom, I represented her son.

      I can’t remember if I had gotten into a fight that day or if a teacher had sent me home from school for bad behavior or if any specific incident triggered the intervention by Mom’s grown children. She positioned herself in the doorway of the room where I had slept for most of my life and in which I now stood, frozen, petrified by anger and shame. She gripped both sides of the white, paint-chipped doorframe. The creases in her brown hands were reminders of their strength. Her well-manicured bouffant wig put her just above five feet tall. Still, she made a formidable barrier, her body between me and Uncle Hotsy—protecting me, as she always did.

      The year was 1986. I was nearly sixteen. It was the first time I had to reckon with the possibility of losing my home—and my mother. “He belongs in foster care,” Dot said calmly.

      It is said that home is where our stories begin. The story of how this book came about also begins at home, and from what I learned from Mom. She defended her home so that it included not just her biological kin but kids from the neighborhood like me, whose families couldn’t look after them for various reasons. Now, I can see that Mom rightly defined our home and family based on our circumstances, and she vigorously defended her definition of family against people and systems who would not accept it—even if those people were her children. I survived Hotsy and Dot’s campaign and managed to stay in that home until I left for college at the age of eighteen.

      Before that day in 1986, I didn’t know what it was to be devalued as a human being. Until that day, I understood rejection only in terms of the dates with girls I couldn’t get. Nothing had prepared me for that moment. Our very presence on 1320 Hill Avenue, in the small city of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, was a testimonial to acceptance. I lived in a Black-majority city that we bragged about; we weren’t like “those other Blacks” we looked down on, the ones who lived in neighboring Pittsburgh, because folks who lived in the city were somehow lesser. Calling Wilkinsburg home made us feel special during a time when the region was anything but.

      Wilkinsburg was once a part of Pittsburgh, until its powerful White residents seceded in 1876, setting

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