Healing Justice Santa Barbara has requested $500,000 from the City of Santa Barbara to support a Black/African-American Cultural Resource Center.
Krystle Sieghart and Simone Ruskamp, co-founders of Healing Justice SB, along with Mariah Jones-Bisquera and Leticia Forney Resch, co-organizers of Healing Justice SB, delivered a presentation outlining the group’s work in the past year.
According to the group’s presentation, Healing Justice SB was “formed in response to the destabilizing impacts of racism and anti-Blackness.”
The panelists and several members of the public expressed that Santa Barbara feels like an unwelcoming space for Black people.
“Quite frankly, I left and moved all the way to Germany for these same reasons, but nonetheless, I am a fifth-generation Santa Barbara native,” Sieghart said.
Healing Justice Santa Barbara began a year ago in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Sieghart and Ruskamp held a historic demonstration at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse Sunken Garden. They led more than 3,000 people to the corner of Santa Barbara and Figueroa streets, near the Santa Barbara Police Department headquarters.
The group made several demands of the city, among them for the city to support a multicultural resource center. In addition, the group has spent the past year organizing and holding events.
The cultural resource center would be a place to preserve Black history, celebrate Black joy and archive Black artists, among many other services.
The group said on Tuesday that the $500,000 would go toward paying the rent for two years.
“Something we have learned is that the city moves as quickly or as slowly as they would like to,” Ruskamp said. “While I understand it may not have been on the agenda to make a financial commitment today, I would say that we have learned that many, many things are possible, especially with people power.”
Ruskamp said the city has made lots of promises and publicly supported the idea of a cultural resource center. Now is the time to take action.
“If you need us to come back, we will come back,” she said. “If you need us to have a deeper conversation, we’ll do so.”
She said city officials have had a year to plan for the moment.
“What have you been doing?” Ruskamp asked. “What is the budget that you have pulled together for what you have promised your constituents?”
Several speakers who called in supported Healing Justice’s efforts.
“There’s room to work here if this is something we really want to do,” said Ian Baucke, the advocacy and policy director for the Santa Barbara Young Democrats. “If you are growing up in this community, if you are a Black person or person of color, what is the evidence right now that city government is saying, ‘We love you. We care about you. We cherish you. We want to see you succeed’?”
Baucke suggested putting the item on the ballot because it “would pass overwhelmingly.”
The City Council on Tuesday took no action because the financial request was not on the agenda.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
