Corpus Christi City Council approves design-build contract negotiations for the Inner Harbor seawater desalination plant<\/a><\/p>\nCommunity leaders say they were disappointed \u2014 but not surprised \u2014 when council approved the desalination measure Tuesday evening, despite objections from residents who argued other sites should be considered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that the city needs water, but you’ve already done studies on other sites and there are other sites you can choose besides a Black neighborhood,\u201d said Deanna King, president of the Corpus Christi NAACP, who grew up in Hillcrest.<\/p>\n
Once a thriving, close-knit community, Hillcrest is now described by lifelong residents as nearly unrecognizable. Years of buyouts and nearby industrial construction have dramatically reshaped the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically everybody was close-knit, family and everything, but we been neglected,\u201d King said. \u201cWe should get the same quality of care in this neighborhood as other neighborhoods instead of being neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n
After years of buyouts and disruptive nearby construction, Zoltan Webb is one of the few residents remaining. Brooks AME Worship Center \u2014 led by Pastor Claudia Rush \u2014 is now the only church still open in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
When Rush became pastor in 2023, she said she quickly realized the church\u2019s role extended beyond spiritual guidance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the bad attitude of, \u2018These people are going to do what they want. I don\u2019t care,\u2019\u201d Rush said, referring to city leaders. \u201cAnd I realized that\u2019s not right, because it\u2019s not going to change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rush says advocacy is deeply rooted in the history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The denomination was founded in 1787 after a group of Black worshippers, led by Richard Allen, left a Philadelphia church following acts of racial discrimination.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile at the altar praying, when the Anglos came in, they were like, \u2018Okay, enough. It\u2019s time for y\u2019all to get up,\u2019\u201d Rush recounted. \u201cThey pulled them up off their knees, and they said, \u2018You won\u2019t ever have to worry about us again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That moment led to the founding of the AME Church and a legacy of civil rights activism \u2014 a tradition Rush says continues in Hillcrest today.<\/p>\n
Residents argue that the timing of the vote during Black History Month underscores what they see as a pattern of disregard for their community.<\/p>\n
While the city maintains the desalination project is necessary to secure long-term water supply, many Hillcrest residents remain wary \u2014 saying they have heard promises before.<\/p>\n
For them, the fight is no longer just about a plant site, but about preserving what remains of a neighborhood that once stood as a cornerstone of Black life in Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hillcrest residents and faith leaders criticize Corpus Christi\u2019s desal vote, calling it the latest blow to the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-180514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}