Legends of Little Canada is a memoir that shares the story of growing up in a neighborhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, which was eventually destroyed by urban renewal in the 1960s, and how this experience shaped you into who you are today. Why was this an important book for you to write?

For too long the issue of “urban renewal” projects, which forcibly displaced people from their homes and long-established small businesses, has been dispassionately debated by academics and policy makers. The “debate” has been between those who condemned the policy as cruel and systematically unjust because it always came at the expense of the most marginalized people to further the interests of the powerful, and those who defended the policy by arguing that, even if the plans ended up failing, the intent was a benevolent one aimed at improving the lives and conditions of the people living in substandard housing.

After spending my adult years learning about the systemic forces that class and race play in dehumanizing the poor and people of color, I utilized that knowledge to resist, organize and empower others by developing strategies to protect them from meeting the same fate I couldn’t prevent happening to me and my loved ones as a child. To do for them what I wish others would have done to defend and protect the rights and dignity of my Aunt Rose and those I loved from being denied to them.

It would have been totally appropriate for me to have written a historical account of what happened and cried out about the injustice of what was done. But, I also observed the insidious trap of how writing such a book would have little use because it would just be dismissed, or minimized, by labelling it as a book with an “agenda,” to be taken with a grain of salt because of my political leanings. As a result, in this age of harsh ideological divisiveness, those who agree with my positions would accept it to confirm their own convictions and those who opposed my political persuasions would reject the book without even reading it. Or to read it only with the intent to find ways to “cherry-pick” parts out of context to try and discredit it among others who might be persuaded by my conclusions.

It was bad enough that the people of Little Canada were powerless to prevent the destruction of the community they loved and were forcibly displaced from their homes, but what makes that injustice even more insidious was that the same power structure also controlled the ability to shape the historical narrative to justify the wrongs they did. They used their power to shape and concoct a false narrative which whitewashed their human rights violations against the people of Little Canada by claiming that their true goal was to improve our lives rather than admitting it was done for their own economic interests.

For the reasons I already stated, I realized that I would not be able to reclaim the narrative if I wrote a scholarly historical account, a polemic or even a memoir in my present adult voice because those who created the false narrative would seek to dismiss my efforts to reclaim the narrative as ideologically driven. They would be allowed to maintain the revisionist history that their prime intention was to create better living conditions for the people of Little Canada. That they did it for us.

I am not powerful enough as the man I am today to overcome their ability to continue to spin that false narrative and get away with it. But I knew somebody who was. The boy I was when I lived through what they did to me and the people of the community I loved. So I chose to write a memoir of that experience, not in my adult voice recalling what was done, but to write it by reliving it as the young person who had no formed politics or understanding of who was doing this to us.

By taking readers back through the innocent eyes of a 13 year old boy who didn’t have any comprehension of the economic forces and political machinations he only heard identified as a faceless entity called “urban renewal,” “young Charlie’s” voice, not only gives witness to those who are no longer here, his innocence blows apart the false narrative that the destruction of Little Canada was done for his and his loved ones benefit.

“Young Charlie’s” painful experience enabled him to cut through the lies and revisionist history by his simple ability to tell right from wrong and reclaim the narrative for the people who were victimized by what those in power did to them and their community.

You grew up in a neighborhood that supported one another and formed a genuine community, not just people living in the same place. What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

You are correct, Little Canada was a community not just a place to live. By community, I mean that everyone felt more like an extended family who knew and cared for each other and felt pride in that unity. A feeling like everyone mattered and each person was loved for who they were and the whole gained by the strength that comes from being able to appreciate and pool all of the unique quirks and characteristics each person brings to the community.

I also learned that to keep oneself and a community strong one has to stand firm against bullies and others who seek to bend a community’s will to their own selfish quest for domination. If they succeed then a community based on sharing and compassion can be turned into an oppressive domination that the demagogue or bully can use to intimidate anyone who threatens their power by enforcing conformity to their demands.

That’s not community, that’s blind tribalism. I have been searching all of my life to find the sense of community I lost that I had living in the Little Canada community that was destroyed by urban renewal.

My success as a leader and organizer has come when I was able to build a community where it didn’t exist. Where I was able to show people that strength comes from diversity, not division and that instead of remaining intimidated by bullies and feeling too weak and hopeless to resist, that they must stop believing the myth that compassion is weakness. In fact, compassion, unity and love is the only thing powerful enough to defeat a cruel bully or oppresser. Think of it. Even the sheer lust for power or greed will never generate more ferocity within a person than somebody fighting to protect somebody they love from being taken from them.

What is one piece of advice someone gave you that changed your life?

I think the faith and moral teachings my Aunt Rose taught me that God doesn’t stop bad people from what they’re doing, that God expects people to do it. And that prayer does not produce supernatural miracles like parting the Red Sea, but it’s something we draw on to give us the internal strength “to do what’s right, when it’s easier to do wrong, or to keep hoping when all appears hopeless. It’s not that goodness or hope always comes out on top, but they have NO chance if somebody stops believing in them.”

Whether one believes in God or not, the wisdom of this advice has changed my life by recognizing that I must make the choice and be responsible about what kind of moral path I will follow.

What was the most challenging part of writing your memoir, and what was the most rewarding?

It was a very painful experience because I had to reopen the raw pain and trauma I spent years trying to repress as I saw one friend after another disappear from my life as each eviction came and the devastating emotional toll it had on my family and neighbors unable to comprehend how this thing called urban renewal could force thousands of us out of our homes. I had to relive the horror of being powerless to protect my beloved Aunt Rose from being forced out of the home she lived in all 65 years of her life and the ensuing tragedies that befell her and so many others.

The most rewarding part of writing the memoir is that it allowed me reconnect with these very same people I loved and lost and the more I opened up my memories to the details I had repressed the more they felt alive again, as if I was transported by a time machine and I had another chance to be with them. And to keep revisiting them anytime I want by rereading my book.

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