99% Invisible - 480- Broken Heart Park

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

In the 1990s Dave Davis worked as the groundskeeper at a small neighborhood park in a suburb of St. Louis called Creve Coeur. It was an unpaid position, but it came with a strange perk: as part of the job, he got to live in a house on the grounds. On the outside, it looks like an ordinary ranch-style house, but once you got inside, something seemed a little off: it looked like someone had completed it in a hurry. It turns out that this house wasn’t supposed to be the home for the groundskeeper, and the park was never supposed to be a park.  It was private property that belonged to a prominent Black doctor back in the 1950s. But the land was taken from him before he could even finish building his home.Broken Heart Park 

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Our story this week is about a park. Not some massive city park designed by Frederick Law Ooms, that or anything, just an ordinary neighborhood park in a suburb of St. Louis. It's about seven acres with soccer fields, two playgrounds, tennis courts, and a creek that runs along the back. Dave Davis worked there as a groundskeeper in the 90s.

It was an unpaid position, but it came with a strange perk. The trade-off was, is that you got to live in a house for free, in a good school district, in a nice neighborhood, a park in your backyard. Right at the entrance of the park, there was a house where Dave and his family lived. At the time, he and his wife were struggling to save enough money to buy their own house,

so it was perfect for them. It quite honestly felt like an answer to a prayer because we were newly married, we had two children at this point, and we really wanted to own a home, and we wanted to get ahead. At first glance, the house seemed like just an ordinary ranch home.

From the outside, it looked like pretty much any of the other houses in the area, maybe a little bit smaller, but it was when you got inside the house seemed like just an ordinary ranch home. From the outside it looked like pretty much any of the other houses in the area, maybe a little bit smaller, but it was when you got inside the house that you realized, wow, and the only way to describe it is to be quick and say, it's like somebody hurried up and finished it. And that's because that is exactly what had happened. It turns out that Dave's house wasn't supposed to be the home for the groundskeeper. In fact, the park was never supposed to be a park.

It was private property that once belonged to a prominent black doctor. But the land was taken from him, before he could even finish building his home. That's reporter Sophie Kodner. I grew up near this park. I used to walk there after elementary school pretty much every day. It's in the town of Krivkore. It's a French name. Krivkore.

But we pronounce it Krivkore. That's Midwestern French. Today, Krivkore is mostly white, about 75%. And St. Louis, more broadly, is one of the most segregated cities in the United States. That didn't happen by accident. In the past, places like Greed Corps actively prevented non-white people from moving in.

This is the story of one of those people. That prominent black doctor, who back in the 1950s, wanted his own piece of the suburban dream. It's about the lengths the town went to to keep him from moving there and a powerful legal tool that was used to uphold segregation.

I didn't learn about this history growing up. In a white family, I should say, the people of Creve Corps ignored it for decades, led it library beneath the green grass of that neighborhood park. But in recent years, the story has resurfaced, forcing my hometown to finally face its ugly past. forced my hometown to finally face its ugly past. Howard Philip Venable was a renowned ophthalmologist from Detroit. He graduated from medical school with honors in 1940 and became the first African American

to earn an ophthalmology degree from New York University three years later. He passed the board exam with the highest score since its inception. I always knew him as a larger than life character. That is Rosalind Venable Woodhouse, Dr. Venable's niece. Rosalind was close with her uncle growing up. She looked up to him. And she remembers going to the movies to watch her uncle in news clips that they'd play on the big screen. That is what used to play between double features at the movies. And he would be featured because of his accomplishments. Vanneble moved to St. Louis in 1943 during the era of Jim Crow. He worked as an eye doctor at the All Black Home or G Phillips Hospital, which had a reputation for training some of the best

nurses and doctors in the country. Vanable taught there too. He had this stick where he would start his classes by asking students to spell ophthalmology. That's OPHTH. That's two H's in there. Glacoma and cataracts were a big problem in African-American communities, so Vennable wanted to prepare his residence to work with black patients specifically. One paper that he published on Glacoma in 1952 is still a crucial reference for ophthalmologist today. Vennable was also a Renaissance man.

Outside of work, he was a talented trumpet player. He even played with legends like Ethel Waters and Duke Ellington. And music was a big part of the Venable Family life. When Dr. Venable and his brothers got together, they used to do this dance called The Sand. He would spread sand out literally like beat sand on a hardwood floor and the sound of the feet going over the sand was rhythmic. He's always been a kind of dapper in the dressing and he always talked eloquently. You know, and he had like a little funny laugh that he would put on, you know, and he was just a remarkable man, you know.

That's Alan Venable, Dr. Venable's nephew. Alan remembers his uncle as the life of the party. He would talk to anybody. He loved to talk, number one. He just had a presence about himself because he knew he was talking about and he could take over the world. In the 1950s, Venable was a St. Louis socialite. He spent time in elite circles with wealthy black and white people, and he was used to

being the first black person to step foot in places that had previously been for white people only. And in 1956, he took one of those steps into the St. Louis suburb of Creecore. One day in March of 1956, Dr. Vennebel saw a small ad in a local newspaper promoting 22 vacant lots in Creecore. At the time, Creecore was an all-white community, sparsely populated with plenty of open space. Vannebel purchased two of the lots. He paid up front in cash.

By part, I was going back to what we said, I wanted freedom to choose. I wanted to be able to move anywhere that I had money I felt I couldn't move to. That is Dr. Howard Philip Venable himself, speaking on an oral history tape recorded in the 1980s. Just like a white doctor with comparable financial status could move anywhere he wanted. And Venable wanted to move to Creefcore to build his dream home.

Everybody was excited because it was ranch style. And that was the first time I had ever heard of a ranch style. So that was kind of exotic in my little mind. Venable's niece Rosalind was a teenager at the time. She remembers looking over the blueprints of her uncle's grand domestic vision. Oh yes, he was talking about a swimming pool tennis court, seven nine old golf clubs, all of that. Then some of Venables colleagues at the hospital got interested in the area too.

Soon, several more black families started making plans to buy lots in Creefcore. But achieving the suburban dream was never going to come easy, even for a group of accomplished doctors with savings and social capital. Right away, some of the White residents in Creefcore started organizing against Vanneble and the other Black families. They were afraid that their property values would decline if the neighborhood became mixed race. So they devised a wholesome looking plan with a sinister twist to keep their new neighbors out. They would build a park on the lots, and they quickly raised $25,000 amongst themselves

to make it happen. Dr. Venable says they successfully intimidated many of the other black families. All the other people took their money out because they scared. They scared. They said, you don't get your money out of here, you lose everything. I went to them and said, look, that lot is yours. Even those downpays, it's like a car. If you make a downpayment on a car, that car is yours. Unless you default on the payments, they can't take out of it, but they got scared.

The other families pulled their money out, but Veneville decided to stay and fight. He had paid cash for his property. He owned it outright, and he wasn't about to give it up. But I was a fighter, and I would criticize Black's White's anybody if I thought I was right. Dr. Veneville hired an architect and started building a brick house right there on his land. But the White residents kept trying to push him out. They tried to buy us out about that time, we wouldn't sell. Then they slapped on us, Aminit Domain. Aminit Domain, let's help the U.S. government takes private property. The rule with

Aminit Domain is that the government can only seize private land if it's for public use, for things that benefit the public, like roads, interports, and parks. But throughout the 20th century, cities across the US used eminent domain as a tool to take land away from black people and keep neighborhoods segregated. Central Park in New York City was a black neighborhood that got converted to a park using eminent domain. Bruce's Beach, a resort run by a black neighborhood that got converted to a park using eminent domain. Bruce's beach, a resort run by a black couple in Los Angeles in the 1920s, suffered the

same fate. In fact, Dr. Vanable's first house in St. Louis was taken by the state to make a highway. One study by the Institute for Justice found that in the 1950s and 60s, one million people in the U.S. were displaced through eminent domain. More than two-thirds of those people were African-American. And that is exactly what was happening in Creefcore. Many white people supported an effort to use eminent domain to take Vannebel's land

where he was actively building his house and turn it into a park. They called it Bern Park, after the mayor at the time, John T. Bern, who was leading the imminent domain effort against Venable. And Venable wasn't the only one that Kreef Corps was keeping out. It turns out the town was also trying to change its zoning code to prevent a Jewish temple, called Temple Israel, from being built just down the road from the park. The Jewish people were in the same park.

They were having problems with the same people. For three long years, Dr. Venable and the temple fought for their land in court. Venable's case went to the Missouri Court of Appeals, and the temple's case went to the Missouri Supreme Court. So we were both in court at the same time. So there are lawyers and our lawyers work together. The fight just came with those visions. They were against them because they were Jewish.

They were against me because they were Black. And they had to make up these very stupid laws to take care of both of us. The Temple won their case. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that religious freedom took precedence over the zoning laws the town was trying to impose. But Dr. Vanneble didn't fare so well.

In the end, after a long, expensive legal battle, the court sided with the town of Creef Court in December 1959. Dr. Vanneble got $31,000 for his land, which today would be worth a little under $300,000. He left town and his property became Burn Park. Holmes and the neighborhood today go for well over $1 million. But that wasn't the end of Dr. Venable's dream. He moved his family to another town in Missouri called Baldwin.

He says his neighbors there embraced him. Venable continued his successful medical career, and he built the house he always wanted. It even had a little pitch and putt golf course. Dr. Vennible's nephew, Alan, says the story of what happened to his family was written about widely at the time. My grandmother read it in Detroit, Michigan, right here about her son that was happening in St. Louis. So it was a known fact.

But in Creeve Corps, it was all kept hush hush. And as time passed, that known fact became unknown. The material was there for them to know, but they didn't really want to know the way I looked at it. But even if no one was talking about the history of the park, there were clues out in the open for anyone to see. Vanibles one story brick ranch house which was built to near completion during the legal

battle remained intact on the park grounds. The city used it as a home for the park groundskeeper. Which is how in the 1990s Dave Davis came to live in Dr. Veniples' half-finished dream home. Like I said to you earlier, when you looked at the inside and you could just tell that there was something that was not completely finished about this, linoleum floors, inexpensive roll tile in the meeting room, just nothing that would be reflective of you believing that this was once somebody's intimately decorated home.

Dave was working towards an associate's degree at a local community college and he enrolled in a folklore class to fulfill a requirement. He had a pretty good idea for the class project. All my wondering about this house, all my wondering about all of this in the middle of this relatively affluent neighborhood and an older community, an area where that would be premium real estate. This just seems to stand out to me and I was curious, so I decided to pursue it and I began doing my research. Dave started talking to people at City Hall and in the parks department. He asked his neighbors if they knew anything about the

history of the park. They didn't have much to say, so Dave started looking through old newspaper archives. That's when I started learning about Dr. Venable, and I started with, wow, what an amazing guy. From the old articles, Dave learned that Venable was this dynamic eye doctor with all of these accomplishments. And then I started reading the rest of the story. You know, the part where the city of Creekor took Vanibu's land and turned it into a park. I thought and assumed, maybe naively, so if he that, um, wow, if everybody knew the story, they're going to want to make this right.

Dave didn't know exactly what Kriefkor would do with the information, but he kept documenting what he found for a school project. And he started talking about it to people in the neighborhood. He thought they should do something to honor Dr. Vendible, that at the very least there should be a plaque at the park to tell the story of what happened. But then it happened. And the phone call started at the house. Asking this Dave Davis, yes.

You're the caretaker of Bern Park, yes. You need to let go of this subject of the park and how it came to be. Dave says he got about five of these calls. Each time he'd pick up the phone and hear a different voice on the other end. One, he didn't recognize. And with each call, the voices got more threatening. The last phone call that I remember was, if you like living in Prive Corps and want to continue to live in pre-court and have your children attend a good school district, you'll let this go and drop it.

Dave doesn't know who was calling him. He has his ideas, but there's no way to know for sure. But Dave says he got nervous. Not afraid for his life or anything, but he was worried about retaliation. His family was just getting on their feet and starting to save some money. I get emotional talking about it, so I'm gonna,

I was scared, I was scared. It's like I don't wanna lose everything. I'm also embarrassed to admit to you that I dropped it, I let it go. I dropped the class, I stopped talking about it because I didn't wanna lose what we had. Sorry. I think Dave did what a lot of people would do. It's much easier to stay quiet, to keep the past in the past, when unearthing it would

make people in the present uncomfortable. But when Dave dropped the class, Dr. Vanennable's story fell back into secrecy in Creve Corps. Dave was the last person to work as the groundskeeper of Bernpark. This city later tore the house down. Of course, the Vennables never forgot what happened to them in Creve Corps. Over time, the story became a piece of family lore, although Rosalind Vennable was quick to say that they weren't dwelling on it.

Well, you know, this isn't the only injustice that we've ever experienced. We are a black family. So it's not like the emotions around this are new to us. Rosalind went on to have a distinguished varied career, much like her uncle. She was the first female chief motor vehicle administrator in the US. She earned a PhD in educational policy, and she was the president and CEO of the Urban League in Seattle. For years, she didn't think much about Creeve Corps until the Vanables got a call from a man named Jim Singer.

I was hoping that we could start from the beginning. Well, there's really two stories. There's the story of what happened with Dr. Vanable. And then there's the story of how Creefcorp kind of woke up from its slumber. This is Jim Singer. He's a labor lawyer in St. Louis and a member of a Jewish temple in Creefcorp.

He says one wake-up call was what happened in St. Louis and a member of a Jewish temple in Creef Corps. He says one wake-up call was what happened in Ferguson. About 10 miles from the park, in the summer of 2014, a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown. His death brought international attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and put St. Louis' history of segregation in the spotlight. After Ferguson, some people in Creef Corps started looking more closely at the legacy of racism in their own neighborhood.

I looked around and realized this had been the park that I'd been to with my parents like 60 years earlier. And I just started wondering, you know, does anybody remember what my mom told me? Did she have it right? Jim had a vague memory of hearing about Dr. Vendible from his parents when he was just a kid. And it all came back to him one day

at the park with his grandson. So we started doing research, and it was all right there. It was well publicized at the time, even though people later forgot about it. It was covered by the post, it was covered in the African American press. So it wasn't exactly a secret what Krif Kourt had done at the time. Jim started writing an article about the history of the park with the Missouri

Historical Society. And then in 2019, he started working on a movement to rename the park. He got his Jewish temple and Krif Kourt involved too. They movement to rename the park. He got his Jewish temple and creve corps involved too. They wanted to strip the park of its original name, Burn Park, and rename it after Dr. Venable. They made a Facebook group, the Venable Park Coalition, and invited residents to join. They put together a public event at a local auditorium to have an open discussion of the history.

And then, they reached out to the Venable family, including Alan and Rosalind. 200 people filled the auditorium. The mayor patched in Rosalind on speakerphone. We have to be the Venables. Yes, we do. Terrific. There was excitement in the room, some nervousness. More than six decades had passed since Dr. Vennable had been pushed out of Creef Corps. Rosalind had been a teenager back then. She had seen the blueprints for her uncle's home and she had heard all about his dreams

for the neighborhood. Now after all these years, she was about to speak to the people of grief corps directly. No one in the auditorium knew what she would say. Inning everyone, I am the Rathlin of the Benevolence of the House, the Chief of Doctor Howard P. Benevolence. Roslyn started by thanking Jim Singer and the rest of the Venable Park Coalition, and then she got to the heart of the matter. I radically, in French, creeper needs broken hearts. Indeed, it was a source of heartbreak

to the Venables and continues as such in the lives of their descendants. It was the source of the denial of an essential element of the American dream, the right to own our home. The family then had some recommendations for Creeve Corps. They wanted the park renamed after Dr. Venable and they wanted the city to build a memorial in honor of all the black people who attempted to integrate to the neighborhood. They also proposed that the town establish a fund or land bank to provide city-owned land or down payment assistance to non-white people who want to buy or build homes in the area. The crowd sounded very receptive to and supportive of doing

something that would acknowledge the terrible injustice that had taken place. After the public event, the Creeve Corps City Council voted unanimously to change the park's name. Burn Park became Dr. H. Philip Venable Memorial Park. Venable Park is sacred ground to me. Nicole Greer is Creeve Corps's only Black City Council member.

She appreciates the name change. She says visiting the park feels different now. Sometimes it's tough, you know, to go because you get really emotional, but there's always going to be this element of, you know, me thinking about why this is a park, because it's not even supposed to be a park? For Nicole and other people in Creeve Corps, just renaming the park was not gonna cut it. So the city formed a task force in 2020 to figure out what else they were going to do. And the mayor of Creeve Corps

he asked me if I can sit on the task force. Obviously, they needed a black presence on the task force. And I was willing to serve and share my opinions. Richard Miller is another Krief Corps resident. He keeps it candid on the Venable Park task force. I don't bite my tongue. You know, I just tell the truth.

And I say things that some people are afraid to say For example rich is not afraid to say that the city of Creefcore owes a debt and not like a metaphorical debt They owe money Some folks have a problem with that name reparations with that term So if that is an issue then let's not call it reparations Okay, let's call it something else. Let's call it honest money or fair money or money to make folks whole again. Critics of reparations sometimes argue that it's impossible to figure out who owes how

much and to whom. But the Creevecore case is clear cut and well documented. The financial losses to the Venable family are concrete. You can calculate them. And so for Rich, it's important that Creevecore make it up to the Venable family by paying them directly or by funding something like the land bank that the family recommended.

We found money for a police station $11 million that we really didn't need. Okay? And we did that by issuing a proposition. Okay, and we got the residents to agree on it. Why can't we issue a proposition to raise money, taxpayers dollars, to make the venerable family home? Since the founding of the United States, land has equaled economic opportunity. In this country, owning property has been key to building wealth that lasts, from one generation to the next. Today, home ownership for black Americans is 30% lower than for white Americans, and white families have a net worth that is 10 times higher on average than that of black families.

Eminent domain is part of the reason why. In Creefcourt, the Vaniboles and the other black families weren't just bullied out of town. They were bullied out of the opportunity to grow wealth there by owning a home. Those are million dollar houses over there. You took that away from them. And I think he should be compensated for it, you know, one way or another. In September of 2021, Rosland and Alan got a chance to visit

Venable Park for the first time. The house is no longer there, but they have been hearing about this area and what happened here since childhood. Finally, they saw it with their own eyes. When I saw the park, I got a rush. I was almost, I was almost dizzy because I had no idea that it was so beautiful and it was quite an experience to actually see it for the first time.

Actually when I arrived at the park, I almost made you want to cry, you know, because you saw all the beautiful homes, all the beautiful homes and lots and everything was all kept up together And this man had picked this area out, you know, and it made me think like if I love something and I want something But they don't love me, you know, they don't want me, you know, and that's a terrible thing for you to love something and something don't love you back. The people of Creef Corps have so far been more than willing to support a symbolic kind of racial justice, a name change. I think naming the park is just a start. It's just a starting change. I think naming the park is just a start. It's just a starting point.

Right now, the city is making plans for a memorial at the park and it's still possible that something more like reparations could happen to. Because as nice as symbolic gestures are, Alan Vanneble wants the people of Creve Corps to remember this about his uncle. He didn't want to part. Not even a big beautiful park with his name on it. He didn't want to part now. He wanted to build his home and raise a family there.

Coming up, more on how eminent domain was used across the country to strip black homeowners of their land and a new movement to get some of it back. After this. So I'm back with Sophie Codner, who brought us that piece about eminent domain. And you know about this story because this was a particular incident that happened in your hometown. But this whole concept of eminent domain, you know, taking land from people is really a national issue. Yeah, so this happened in Creefcore where I'm from, but it also happened all over the

country. Eminent domain was a big part of the urban renewal efforts that happened after World War 2 in the 1950s and 60s. Cities across the country would get funding from the federal government to basically bulldoze certain neighborhoods. They'd call them blighted or some standard. And they'd do that to make space for newer development. And it was often used to target low-income neighborhoods

and neighborhoods of color. And outside of urban renewal, eminent domain was used to target specific people, too. And this is what happened in the case with Dr. Van Atwell, right? Yeah, exactly. It often had to do with keeping area segregated or taking particularly valuable land, specifically for its resources.

So again, there are a lot of stories like this all around the country. And while I was reporting, I learned about this organization. I thought was really interesting called, where is my land? And they're actually focused on this exact issue, reclaiming land stolen from black people. I talked with a Shawntine Martin about it.

She's one of the founders. We were established in 2021 and our mission is to help Black families in America reclaim stolen land and secure restitution. So 2021 is really recent. So what how do they get started? Yeah, the organization was born out of this incident in Southern California that came to a head last year. It was this place called Bruce's Beach, which was a popular resort owned by a black couple. Their names were Willa and Charles Bruce. And in the 1920s, the city of Manhattan Beach used eminent domain to take the land. And the city said they wanted it for a park.

Yeah. I mean, that sounds exactly like the Venomple story. Right. So Ashanti's co-founder, her name's Kavan Ward. She was living in Manhattan Beach when she heard about this history. And after George Floyd was killed, she decided to hold an event at Bruce's Beach Park on June 10th and 2020 to get the word out to the community about what had happened to the Bruce's. Some of the Bruce family ended up attending the picnic, and that's when Kovan decided there should really be a way,

some policy mechanism to actually return the land of the park to the Bruce family. She lied some community organizing, advocacy work. There was definitely a lot of pushback, but in the fall of 2021, it happened. And it's thought to be the first time in the history of the United States that land stolen from black people was actually returned to their descendants.

Wow. Bruce's beach and Kovans' work showed that something can be done. If we can find evidence that, you know, a family or an individual owned land, and it was taken from them by various means. And particularly if those means were racially motivated, then we have to do something about that. Ashanti told me that part of the reason she wanted to start, where is my land with Kavan? Actually came from reading more about George Floyd's

family history. She read about it in a story in the Washington Post. Then one of the parts of that story that just really stayed with me and stuck with me is that his great-great-grandfather, Manning Hillary Thomas Stewart Jr., he had acquired a few hundred acres of land in North Carolina. And as told to the Washington Post by George Floyd's family, that land was seized by white farmers. So it just becomes very salient and palpable that this history is directly connected to

some of the issues that we're facing now. I mean, it's such an important point because, you know, first, we knew such a narrow slice of the end of George Floyd's life like literally like on tape And then you get to know him as a person his whole life and to think about like The whole history of his family and how it all led to this moment is really powerful stuff Right, it's like you know thinking about Cards being stacked against someone and that's that's sort of the that's what systematic racism is. Yeah, yeah.

And Ashanti told me, you know, like these are facts, these aren't feelings. She's looking at the hard evidence behind these stories. Whereas my land is actually trying to create a database of land that was stolen by eminent domain and by other means. On their website, they have a page where black families can register their land

and they've already gotten hundreds of claims. We have a case from Connecticut, California. A lot of cases are, of course, concentrated in the south, and they really span rural, urban, and suburban land. They go back to right around the time of land, they span, they go back to right around the time of reconstruction up through the 21st century. So that's really why we exist is to get at this from a national level and to just really wake people up as to the history specifically of the racially motivated theft of Black land. So where is my land is really trying to turn land reclamation into a movement? It has been so easy to ignore these families

for so long because they haven't had anybody in their court fighting for them. So that's really what we want to change. I think we're going to be hearing more and more stories like Bruce's Beach and Venable Park. I mean, it's interesting because in the story that you reported, the Venable family didn't express interest in having the park and Creve Corps return to them as land, you know.

Right. Yeah, so actually returning the land of the park to the Venable family, it hasn't really been part of the discussion so far. I think right now, the Venable family and the Creve Court Task Force are really focused on this memorial. They want to redesign the park and make it a destination, a place where people can go and learn about the history of the park and also of housing discrimination more broadly. And sort of talk about this from a national perspective. But I will say that much like Vanable Park was renamed recently, Bruce's

Beach Park was renamed for the Bruce's in 2007. And you know, 14 years later, the land was returned. Wow. That's fascinating stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing the story with us and this, this, this, I really appreciate it. Thank you, Roman. 99% of the visible was produced this week by Sophie Coddner, edited by Emmett Fitzgerald, mixed in tech production by Martin Gonzales. Follini Hall is the executive producer, Kirk Colestetti, is our digital director. The rest of the team includes Vivian Leigh, Chris Barube, Christopher Johnson, Joe Rosenberg,

Lashemadon, Jason De Leon, Sophia Klassger, and me Roman Mars. Music by a director of sound, Swan Rial, plus an additional song La Paresa by Duke Ellington and his Kentucky club orchestra. Special thanks this week to the Venable family, including Victoria Venable Fletcher and Crystal Venable, Sidney Jackson, Kimberly Norwood, Steve Stradaugh, Eric Berker, Mark and Nancy Codner, the office of the City of Creve Corps, the Missouri Historical Society, and the audio program at the UC Berkeley Cratchett School of Journalism. We are a part of the Stitcher and Serious Exam Podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north and the Pandora building.

And beautiful. Uptown, Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook. You can tweet me at Roman Morris and the show at 99PI org. We're on Instagram and Reddit too. You can find links to other Stitcher shows I love as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org. Stitcher. Serious. Excellent. Our limited series, The Future of, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is all about exploring how changes to the way we live, learn, work, and play may shape our health

and well-being in years to come. Our second episode in the series, which we will release as a bonus episode of 99PI this week, is all about the future of broadband. A thing once viewed as a home luxury that is now a requirement for navigating the modern world. People without good internet access are at a severe disadvantage. Education, economic development and opportunity, which I'm relating to jobs, you are stricken from that. That is Monique Tate, a digital justice advocate. If you go somewhere and say, I'm interested in a job, can I just fill out a piece of paper,

no one has that for you to do anymore. They're going to say, if you can't submit your application, we can't even consider you. On the next 99% invisible, we'll look at the past and future of broadband and the solutions people are coming up with to solve what's known as the last mile problem. This special episode is the second in a four-park series we created exploring the future of health and wellbeing. Each episode examines what we could do today to create a healthier, more equitable future.

Thanks to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for their sponsorship of the future of, to not miss a single episode, all you have to do is subscribe to 99% of us. Subscribe to 99% of visible.