The 25th annual Clarissa Street Legacy Reunion was held over the weekend in Rochester, after 3 years of cancellations due to the pandemic.
The festival was created by The Clarissa Street Legacy organization in 1996 to preserve and celebrate the neighborhood's history and cultural heritage, and overall success in the Black and brown community.
The vice president of Clarissa Street Legacy, Renee Long, said the organization wants to make sure they continue to educate their kids about the economic success that Clarissa Street was.
Like many Black neighborhoods that prospered in the first half of the 20th century, Clarissa Street was devastated by urban renewal, when white planners and city officials bulldozed homes and replace them with highways.
Long compared the economic activity of Clarissa Street in its heyday to that of the once-thriving Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was called "Black Wall Street."
Unlike Clarissa Street, the Greenwood neighborhood wasn't destroyed through urban planning, but was the target of a racist massacre. It had been home to over 10,000 residents and a hundred successful businesses before a white mob attacked and destroyed it in two days. White pilots dropped dynamite from planes; white neighbors shot Black residents in the street; they would go on to loot and burn the buildings block-by-block in a systemic attack.
“Most people know the history of Black Wall Street, but they don't recognize the fact that we had that same scenario happen here in Rochester,” Long said. “So, part of our charge as the legacy is to make sure that we continue to make sure all people know this story, and that all people are able to express it and understand it.”
Long says they hope to establish a museum dedicated to the history of Clarissa Street. Now part of Corn Hill, it was once called the Third Ward, until Interstate 490 was built through it in the 1970s.
Also participating in Saturday’s Clarissa Street Reunion Eva Thomas, the principal of Dr. Walter Cooper Academy School #10. Cooper is a former research scientist at Kodak, who has been an advocate for education in Rochester for many years.
Some of her students performed a cultural dance during the Saturday festivities. Thomas says she was impressed - and delighted - by their performance.
“It is so important that our students know how to give back how to honor our ancestors and understand the shoulders that they stand on,” she said. “But also, it gives me great joy to see them enjoying educational experiences.”
The weekend event also featured food, crafts and dance and music - and a chance for one-time neighbors to reconnect.
