Featured Presenter: Whitney Dotson

Rick Bacigalupi (huge thanks) went for a walk with Whitney Dotson to discuss his work and the upcoming Summit.

Whitney Dotson is an environmentalist and activist. He lives in Richmond, California and is a member of the Board of Directors of Citizens for East Shore Parks. Dotson has worked to restore Breuner Marsh and to protect Parchester Village in Richmond.

Parchester Village was developed after World War II for African Americans who moved to Richmond to work in the shipyards and could not buy houses elsewhere. It was built on the donated land of founder Fred Parr, a white developer. Local residents say that it is the first African American homeowners’ community in the Bay Area. About 1,000 people live in 400 single-family, one-story homes on this small tract sandwiched between two railroad tracks. It has remained mostly black since it was built, though some Latino families have moved in recently.

Whitney Dotson’s father, the late Reverend Richard Daniel Dotson, was one of the early settlers in Parchester in 1950 and became a community leader, organizing to preserve Breuner Marsh and helping to get adjacent Point Pinole turned over to the East Bay Regional Park District. Mr. Dotson will present on Day 2 (http://www.ecocityworldsummit.org/program.htm) of Ecocity’s main conference sessions.

More…

Whitney Dotson was 5 years old when he moved into the brand-new house his father bought on Jenkins Way in Parchester Village. It was the early 1950s, and the planned 420-house development was Richmond’s first subdivision in which an African American… (read article at latimes.com)