Why Greenwich needs to talk about equity and access

Recently, a story in Greenwich Time shed light on residents in Hamden who discovered a racist restrictive covenant clause in their deeds. The clause stated that “no persons of any race other than the white race shall use or occupy any building or any lot except that this covenant shall not prevent the occupancy by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant.” While Connecticut passed a law in 2021 rendering such language unenforceable, the story serves as a stark reminder that vestiges of systemic racism and discrimination persist in our deeds, laws, cultural norms, institutions, and structures within our society.

And the Hamden restrictive covenant story is a reminder of why every January, YWCAs across the country honor the vision and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. given our shared YWCA mission of “eliminating racism, empowering women and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.” At YWCA Greenwich, we seek to honor Coretta Scott King and Dr. King with an annual conversation that examines a contemporary topic that these two civil rights leaders would have cared about were they alive today.

This year, on Jan. 18 at 7 p.m., our annual conversation is titled “Bending the Arc? A Conversation about Inequity and Access in Greenwich.” At first glance, one might not expect that a conversation about equity and access is needed in Greenwich, one of the wealthiest communities in the country, situated in one of the wealthiest regions in the country. The reality of both the community and the region, however, encompasses chronic disparities based on race and gender along several key measures of individual and community well-being. These disparities are documented in DataHaven’s recently published 2023 Fairfield County Community Wellbeing Index and the 2023 Equity Report.

Despite the many attractive qualities of our beautiful state, Connecticut’s own Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities published a study in 2021 calling Connecticut

“one of the most racially segregated states in the nation,” a conclusion backed up the following year by the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Other studies using Census data and published by Brown University, the Associated Press, Pro Publica and others have confirmed this chronic segregation.

We can all agree with the Kings’ vision of a just society and the moral imperative of addressing the longstanding gender and racial disparities cited in DataHaven studies and elsewhere. We should also acknowledge the economic vibrancy that flows from the mitigation of gender and racial disparities and the promotion of economic justice. The State of Connecticut and the United States economic output or GDP would jump substantially with the elimination of racial and gender disparities, as demonstrated in studies by the Federal Reserve, McKinsey & Company, Bloomberg, and others.

How do address these disparities? How do we continue to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, as Dr. King said? The solutions are multi-faceted and cut across public, private, governmental and nonprofit sectors. Please join us, together with over 60 community co-sponsors, to examine solutions to these longstanding disparities at the YWCA on Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. Our distinguished panel will include Mark Abraham, executive director of DataHaven; Dr. Lou Hart, medical director of health equity, Yale New Haven Health System; Evonne Klein, former commissioner of housing for the State of Connecticut, and founder of Fairfield County Talks Housing; and Demetria Nelson, commissioner of the Greenwich Department of Human Services. Our panel will be moderated by YWCA Greenwich’s director of equity and Justice, Simone Quartey.

Visit ywcagreenwich.org for more information and to register for this free, community-wide celebration of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy and vision of a just society.

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