South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Once a guide for the nation, Peoria now showing its cracks
Ashley Daily Stegall hated how the plywood l o o ke d covering the smashed windows at her parents’ jewelry store in Peoria, Illinois. So she asked a local artist to paint flowers on the boards.
“The goal is to make people happy,” Stegall said.
For Janet Davis, the reality of what happened in Peoria cannot be easily painted over. She erected plywood to protect her clothing store from looting that followed peaceful protests over the killing of George Floyd. A month later, Davis still hasn’t fully reopened because she worries more violence is ahead.
Big retailers are struggling too. The Dollar General, near a large subsidized housing development, dumped all of its food last week because the vandalized store is likely to stay closed six more weeks for repairs. “They are throwing out food in a food desert,” said Denise Moore, a City Council member.
A city of about 111,000 in the central part of the state, Peoria has historically been a bellwether for the Midwest and, at times, the nation. It is a place where marketers tested products, politicians honed their slogans, and rock stars kicked off tours. “Will it play in Peoria?” the saying went.
But it has been many years since companies like Pampers and Folgers coffee debuted products in Peoria before rolling them out nationally.
Some residents and local leaders say Peoria is now emblematic for a different reason. It is a city where many Black residents, who make up about 27% of the population, and white residents experience starkly different economic realities, leading to years of frustration and despair.
On May 30, there were peaceful protests throughout the city. But the next night, Peoria experienced a burst of looting, vandalism and violence when, police and residents say, a group of young people drove through the city, ransacking beauty stores and breaking into a guns and ammunition store.
One month later, business owners are still struggling to make repairs and reopen while also debating the roots of the looting and how to respond. Many residents say the vandalism was a random spasm of rage and opportunism. But others say some of the looting was deliberate, targeting large chains and certain other retailers while sparing many Blackowned businesses.
Chama St. Louis, a former president of Peoria’s Black Chamber of Commerce who is running for mayor, said she believed at least some of the looting was meant to send a message, and she bailed out four people who were arrested in connection with the unrest. But in doing so, St. Louis, 35, found herself at odds with white and Black leaders in Peoria, who denounced the vandalism and theft as simply crimes, not political acts.
Moore, who is the first Black woman elected to the City Council, said there was a more troubling reason Black businesses seemed spared from the looting.
“There just aren’t enough Black-owned businesses in Peoria,” she said. “That is the bigger issue.”
Peoria’s South Side has one of the poorest ZIP codes in Illinois, and one publication has for several years named the city among the worst places to live if you are Black. The median household income for Black residents of Peoria is $41,200, compared with $60,300 for white residents, according to census data. White residents are twice as likely to hold a college degree as Black residents are.
And yet Peoria, which boasts a revived riverfront, a minor league baseball stadium and a new drive-in movie theater, was also cited by Business Insider as one of the best cities to live in after the pandemic.
Young’s Popcorn Heaven, a Black-owned business, was spared damage. But JoAnn Young, 66, who opened the shop with her husband, Greg, said she worried that big chains that were damaged, like Walmart, would raise their prices to pay for the repairs.
“They will pass those costs along to consumers, and prices are already going higher because of the coronavirus,” she said.