A group looted the Walgreens Pharmacy at the corner of Essex and Washington streets following the conclusion of protests on May 31 against the killing of a Minneapolis man by police. Photo by Chris Van Buskirk | State House News Service
In the wake of nation-wide protests and, in some cases, clashes with police and looting, local and national figures in the real estate and banking industries have largely condemned the violence alongside the killing of a Black Minneapolis man while in police custody.
Boston officials say 20,000 took to the streets of Downtown, the South End and Roxbury on Sunday to protest the death of George Floyd. Floyd died in Minneapolis on Memorial Day while white police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes while arresting him. While Boston’s protests were largely peaceful, they were followed later at night by violent confrontations between a smaller number of protesters and police and limited looting in Downtown Crossing and Back Bay.
Sunday night’s events spurred a range of responses across the business community, from figures like Eastern Bank President Bob Rivers urging people to support a call for police reform put out by the NAACP and real estate developer Hudson Group principal Noam Roan taking to Twitter to urge reforms to the Boston Police Department’s use-of-force policies, to others decrying the looting in strong terms.
In response to the weekend’s events, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts issued a statement which read, in part: “The justified uprisings we see erupting across the nation — from New York City to Philadelphia to Atlanta to Minneapolis to Louisville to Salt Lake City to Los Angeles – are in fact the rebellion of a people who are responding to the daily massacres that they have experienced for generations in a long list of past and present injuries that include abusive police tactics, stagnant wages, lack of contracts with Black businesses, growing health disparities, discriminatory housing practices, the denial of mortgages and loans, and other offenses that are repeatedly addressed only with symbolic gestures rather than substantive action.”
The executive director of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, a prominent national real estate trade group originally founded in 1947 as an alternative professional association for agents then excluded from the National Association of Realtors, said in a Facebook post that some of the anger came from feelings of “despair” in many Black communities, and condemned those who would “burn down our neighborhoods” in an earlier post over the weekend.
“The racial disparities in homeownership are at the core of racism in the U.S. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was only signed into law after the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. followed by a week of protests and riots,” Antoine Thompson wrote Tuesday morning. “Housing conditions and land ownership have always led to a feeling of despair in black families and communities!”
NAR President Vince Malta called Floyd’s death “shocking,” “senseless” and “tragic” in a statement issued by the organization.
“Our deepest sympathies are with the Floyd family and other families who understand and feel this pain and grief,” he said. “Our neighbors in the communities where we work and live across America should feel safe and free from discrimination.”
