Brownsville Taught Me How to Fight for Home
When I tell others I’m from New York City, the follow-up question, “Which part?” often precedes a subtle shift, a faint frown, a lingering gaze, when I say Brownsville, Brooklyn. To outsiders, Brownsville is often reduced to statistics or stereotypes, but to me, it was home. I grew up in a neighborhood that taught me resilience long before I had a name for it. My earliest memories aren’t of playgrounds or parks but of kitchen-table conversations about rent increases, eviction notices, and neighbors disappearing overnight. The corner store owner who slipped me free candy when my mother’s paycheck was late closed after a sudden “renovation.” The salon where my mother used to braid hair to make ends meet was replaced by a coffee shop with prices none of us could afford. Even our apartment never felt entirely secure; my mother, an immigrant and a small business owner, fought a quiet, exhausting battle to keep a roof over our heads while keeping her home-based business afloat.
Photo of Jade as a child growing up in Brownsville.
For me, gentrification wasn’t a headline or a graph, it was the slow erasure of the people and places that raised me. It was watching my mother’s hands tremble when a new landlord knocked on the door. It was the silence left behind when friends moved away without saying goodbye because they were ashamed of being evicted. It was the feeling that no matter how hard we worked, we were always one rent hike away from losing everything.
Brownsville is more than where I grew up, it is home. It represents strength, community, and survival. It’s the block parties where kids played until the streetlights came on, the aunties watching over all of us, and the pride of knowing we belonged to each other even when the city overlooked us. That’s why I don’t want it to change in ways that erase us. The buildings may look the same, the soul of Brownsville is its people, and when they are pushed out, what remains is an empty shell. What I want to protect is that sense of belonging, the collective resilience that held families like mine together when everything else felt unstable.
Photo of Brownsville and East New York.
It shows the large wealth gap between the two districts as you see Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn in the distance and demonstrates the reality of low income community members in real time.
That is the soil out of which my project grew. Becoming an ELLA Fellow gave me the chance to turn my lived experience into action. At first, I thought the answer was policy. If I could write a strong enough proposal, maybe we could slow the tide. But as I began meeting with neighbors, sitting in living rooms, and hearing their stories, I realized something profound: many of us didn’t even know what protections already existed. We didn’t know how to fight an eviction, how to organize a tenant association, or how to access free legal aid. Policy without access is just paper. People need knowledge, language, and community before any law can work for them.
That realization changed everything. Instead of drafting a bill, I built a workshop. Displacement & Resistance became a three-day hybrid event co-hosted with the NYC Black Chamber of Commerce in April 2025. We welcomed more than 60 participants in person and online, distributing over 150 multilingual resource toolkits. Each day focused on a different theme, understanding gentrification’s mechanisms, knowing your housing and small-business rights, and building collective power. Panels mixed with breakout sessions, story circles, and action planning. Legal experts sat beside longtime residents. People mapped out “hot zones” of displacement and brainstormed how to fight back.
Flyer for Jade’s three day workshop series titled “Displacement & Resistance” created as a part of her ELLA fellowship.
One moment stays with me. On Day Two, during our “Know Your Rights” session, an older resident named Mr. Ellison shared his story. His mother, he said, lost their home after cycling through multiple landlords. “No one taught her how,” he told us quietly. “She learned by losing.” His words landed like a thunderclap. In a few sentences, he captured the generational cost of systemic neglect. After he spoke, the energy in the room shifted. People began to share their own stories, of harassment by landlords, of leases they didn’t understand, of feeling ashamed for needing help. By the end of the session, they weren’t just telling stories; they were exchanging numbers, planning a tenant union meeting, and connecting with legal aid on the spot.
That moment crystallized why I built this project. Housing justice is not a luxury, it is the foundation for everything else. Without stable housing, education falters, health declines, and community erodes. Yet in Brownsville and neighborhoods like it, residents are too often left uninformed, denied legal support, and told displacement is inevitable. Displacement & Resistance proved the opposite: when people have information, a safe space to speak, and a network of support, they begin to see themselves not as victims but as agents of change.
The ELLA Fellowship gave me the space and training to make that pivot. Over nine months, I learned how to translate dense laws into everyday language, how to design bilingual materials in English, Spanish, and Haitian Kreyòl, and how to step back and let collective wisdom lead. I learned that leadership isn’t about speaking first; it’s about creating space for others to speak. I also learned how to handle setbacks, lower turnout on day three, Zoom glitches, activities that landed flat, with transparency and humility. Those lessons will travel with me as I work toward becoming a civil rights attorney. Justice doesn’t start in courtrooms; it starts in living rooms, in church basements, and in story circles like the one Mr. Ellison helped create.
I also saw something else: hunger. Seventy percent of our exit surveys asked for quarterly workshops. People wanted more because they had never been given tools that spoke directly to their lived realities. They were missing spaces where their voices were not only heard but valued. Community is important because it transforms isolation into solidarity. Two participants even launched a tenant WhatsApp group before the event ended. That’s what grassroots power looks like, not a single moment, but a ripple effect.
To other young people or future fellows: don’t underestimate the power of listening. Policy matters, but empowerment begins when people see themselves as experts in their own lives. Build trust first. Make space for voices that aren’t usually heard. And remember that even in the face of massive systems like gentrification, communities have power when they organize, learn, and act together.
Brownsville taught me that displacement is not inevitable, and resistance can be contagious. We are more than the policies written about us. We are the policies we create for ourselves, together.
Jade Duffus is a junior at The George Washington University, double-majoring in Political Science and Finance with a minor in Philosophy. Originally from Brownsville, Brooklyn, Jade’s identity and purpose have been shaped by growing up in a low-income, immigrant household. Witnessing the impact of gentrification and systemic inequality on her community inspired her to pursue work centered on justice, access, and community power. As an ELLA Fellow, Jade has focused on making advocacy tools more accessible to those often excluded from policy conversations. Her experiences interning with the NYC Black Chamber of Commerce, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, and legal service providers have deepened her understanding of the intersections between law, economic development, and racial equity. For Jade, this project was more than an academic pursuit—it was a personal mission. She is committed to continuing to build spaces where communities like hers are heard, protected, and uplifted. After college, Jade plans to attend law school and continue advancing housing and civil rights.