Pastors across the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex gathered Feb. 27 for a prayer rally to draw attention to a historic African-American community denied basic services like running water.
“We’re going to ask God to intervene and break into this situation and touch the hearts of the decision makers that as soon as possible, they would provide clean running water to this community,” Dwight McKissic, pastor of Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated Cornerstone Baptist Church of Arlington, Texas, said at the rally at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Seagoville, Texas.
Residents rally for prayer at Mount Zion Baptist Church. (Photo/The Lost Community of Sandbranch Facebook page)
McKissic, who is African American, helped organize the rally to demand justice for the several dozen remaining residents of Sandbranch, a community established for freed slaves after the Civil War. An online petition claims Dallas County has been systematically destroying the poor, predominantly black community since the 1980s, when the Southside Water Treatment Plant moved next door and contaminated two-thirds of the wells that before then had served as a safe and reliable water supply.
Though located just minutes from downtown Dallas and surrounded by development, the Sandbranch community is unincorporated, meaning no municipality has responsibility for basic services like water and sewage, trash removal or police or fire protection.
McKissic said efforts in 1987, 1998 and 2002 to provide water to Sandbranch through Dallas County were stalled because of the lack of funds. In 2003, Sandbranch was declared part of a 100-year Trinity River flood plain, ending all efforts to provide sewage and water services. Dallas County moved 36 families out of Sandbranch, bulldozing the homes they left behind.
Eugene Keahey, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, the last remaining community institution, says the flood plain is just an excuse for doing nothing. Millions of Americans live in 100-year flood plains in cities like Houston, San Antonio, Galveston, Austin and Dallas, he said, but they have access to running water.
“We’re not asking for a lot,” Keahey said in an interview posted two weeks ago on Vimeo. “We’re not asking for free water. We’re not asking for bottled water. We are really asking for a water bill.”
“How strange is that?” the pastor marveled. “We have to fight the government to get a water bill, something you and I fight the government not to have.”
“Sandbranch residents are fighting to get a water bill,” he said. “That’s it. And as of right now Dallas County has refused to give them a water bill.”
Keahey says many of the 40 families have lived in their homes for generations, and they don’t want to move. All have incomes below the federal poverty line, and could not afford to live elsewhere even if they wanted to.
“You can’t move, especially when you’re on a fixed income,” he said. “Our median income is $721. I don’t know where you’re going to go to get a home and pay it off and live off of $721. So we’re asking for Dallas County to do the right thing and allow us to have a water bill.”
“This community has been bullied, threatened and denied clean drinking water for decades by Dallas County,” says a StandUnited petition titled Governor of Texas: Save Sand Branch, Texas. This is a humanitarian and do-the-right-thing issue that must be corrected. No community in America should be denied clean drinking water.”