In the article “Crowd unleashes ideas at planning session” (JP Gazette, Nov. 3) about development in Forest Hills, I was misquoted rather badly as saying, “In 1970 we had every race here, the kind of community we try to create now.”
What I did say was that in 1970 we had a problem with racism in a virtually all-white community. I went on to say that in the mid-’70s any family of color moving in risked rocks through their windows and threats of worse. In 1978 or 1979, a group of us formed an emergency response network to protect families of color moving in.
Over the ensuing years many white families left the neighborhood, but some stayed on during those difficult years and welcomed newcomers of every race. Now I worry that many of these families are being priced out of the neighborhood. I didn’t see many of these long-term Forest Hills residents at the planning meeting, and am concerned that their voices be heard in the redevelopment process.
Marie Kennedy
Jamaica Plain
Editor’s note: See correction elsewhere in this issue.