New cultural empowerment center to open in Burlington - WCAX

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BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - What’s currently an empty building in the Old North End will soon transform into the Richard Kemp Cultural Empowerment Center.

The center has been in the works by the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance since June 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, and it’s now being prepared to launch next week.

The Richard Kemp Center is named after Burlington’s first Black city councilor.

Mark Hughes, Richard Kemp’s son-in-law and the executive director of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, says the center seeks to move Burlington and Vermont toward greater racial and social equity in wealth distribution, health and prosperity by letting Black and brown Vermonters lead the the conversations and community engagement.

“This is that bastion of hope. This is that place where we stand up and we hold the gap and we figure out innovative and creative ways to bridge that gap and to meet Black and brown people where they are to provide solutions for the gaps that we know exist, that these systems are under-serving them consistently,” Hughes said.

Hughes says the center will serve as a place where Black and brown Vermonters can “be the solution to some of their own challenges.”

“If the average wealth of a Black family in the United States is 1/13th that of a white family... if only 0.2 percent of farm land in this state belongs to Black people... if only 4 percent of housing belongs to BIPOC in this community, and the list goes on, then there must be something that we do about it,” Hughes said.

Hughes says during the next few weeks, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance will be reaching out to community members to find out exactly what type of services they want to see offered at the Richard Kemp Center.

As of right now, they’re planning on providing culturally sensitive adult education programs, basic computer skills training, workforce development, home and land ownership education, grant assistance, and youth programming.

“The promise here is that it’s in the hope of the future of our youth and our community moving forward for generations to come so that’s what’s exciting about what we’re doing,” Hughes said. “This is the work on the ground. This is the blocking and tackling where we’re going up and we’re meeting with people and we’re actually helping people help themselves and standing with them as partners in this neighborhood.”

The doors of the Richard Kemp Center open on Nov. 30.

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