CALARCO: The American Dream

Homeownership has long been part of the American dream. For many Americans, though, that dream was denied to them by racist and discriminatory practices meant to keep Black people from owning homes. At one time across New York, and specifically here in Suffolk County, if you were Black and wanted to purchase a home, you could not. Instead, Black house hunters were ushered to different areas of New York City such as Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx. In the 1920s, a white landowner named Pop Gordon worked to change that by making homeownership on Long Island a reality for people of African descent.

The area of land, that Pop Gordon owned, is known as Gordon Heights and today is home to about 4,000 predominantly Black residents. In order to sell the dream of homeownership, Mr. Gordon hired a land developer named Louis Fife. Mr. Fife visited Black neighborhoods, advertised to Black churches, and knocked on doors selling people on a simpler country life here on Long Island. Black people from around the country, but primarily from Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn, moved to Gordon Heights to start a new life and realize the promise of

homeownership. This little area of Suffolk County was the first place on Long Island where Black people could own a home. In 1927, Fife and his company, the Gordon Heights Development Corporation, sold five 100-by-100 plots for as little as $10 a month. This was at the time an expensive proposition, but one seen as necessary in order to build familial wealth.

As an inland community, Gordon Heights could not develop the same types of industry as its costal counterparts. Fishing, clamming and other aquatic industries were just not an option. Therefore, farming became the main trade of the day, with farms lining the major roadway of what today is Middle Country Road. The community kept building and created churches, civic associations and sports and social clubs. Residents opened banks and credit unions. For the first time, these types of institutions opened their doors to the Black residents for loans for repairs, additions and eventually new homes.

In those early days, the residents of Gordon Heights did not easily acquire employment. Whites in certain areas knew for whom Mr. Fife was buying land and building homes, and racism and discrimination dominated thinking and attitudes towards the young Black settlement. Many Gordon Heights residents traveled back and forth to New York City daily, and some stayed over during the week in order to afford their place in the country. Later, as Gordon Heights continued to develop further, jobs opened up for these residents in their community.

The civic association created a fire department in 1947 after a church burned down. Prior to that, there had never been a fire department in the area, and surrounding largely white communities had no obligation to assist Gordon Heights. The creation of the Gordon Heights Fire Department made history, as it was the first Black fire department in New York State.

Here in Suffolk County, the legacy of Louis Fife is alive in the community that Gordon Heights has grown into. He offered opportunity when most were fine with the status quo of racism and segregation. The Black community that developed from that opportunity grew into a vibrant, hardworking and successful hamlet.

Long Island has a complicated history, but we cannot shy away from remembering it. Black history is American history.