A local civil rights group released a statement calling on Total Action for Progress to sell the Dumas Hotel to the Dumas Legacy Group. The Roanoke Valley Southern Christian Leadership Conference — which is associated with preserving the message of Martin Luther King Jr. — sent out a release calling out TAP for selling the building to an anonymous buyer. The statement says TAP’s latest actions are a growing concern and the organization is worried the black community is being treated unjustly.
From the Southern Christian Leadership Conference: This is a critical moment for the City of Roanoke and the Roanoke Valley as a whole. This is the time for racial healing; this is the time for accountability for those organizations and institutions that claim to value what is best for citizens, and this is the time for the community to rise up and demand truth, good faith and genuine actions by them and their government. We are releasing this statement of support for the community’s intention to purchase the Dumas Hotel from TAP. We call on TAP and its Board of Directors to be true to its mission and vision:
TAP Mission:
TAP helps individuals and families achieve economic and personal independence through education, employment, affordable housing, and safe and healthy environments.
TAP Vision:
To create a nation, a commonwealth and a community which achieves their highest economic and social potentials by each individual having the opportunity to reach the full extent of his or her capabilities, and to participate in the American way of life.
TAP Website 2017
The Dumas is the embodiment of the social, cultural, and economic past and future of the black community. This is the “opportunity… (for the community) …to reach the full extent of its capabilities…” TAP’s efforts to undermine the community’s efforts and its right to reclaim the Dumas are a growing cause of concern for the S.C.L.C. and others. We are concerned that the black community is being treated differently and perhaps even unjustly. TAP chose to accept an anonymous offer for purchase in the middle of negotiating with The Dumas Hotel Legacy, Inc. group representing the black community. This decision by TAP is inconsistent with its mission and with the promises it made to the City and the black community when it sought to get the Dumas from the City for free. It is also inconsistent with the numerous written, stated and implied versions of the vision TAP committed to for the use of the Dumas.
