According to its website, “Project Connect began as a City of St. Louis’ initiative to understand the potential benefits and impacts the relocation of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) would have on surrounding neighborhoods and future development. It has since evolved into an effort to create alignment between the needs and desires expressed by the people of those neighborhoods, existing projects and future neighborhood opportunities.”
This quote speaks to the failure of the City of St. Louis for more than 50 years to bring any meaningful development or reparations to north St. Louis and the west side, both heavily populated by African people. The St. Louis Development Corporation, in conjunction with Project Connect, released a 2,500-page draft plan in December 2025 for the relocation of and depopulation of six City of St. Louis African communities.
These communities sit along the 2,000 acres of land that the NGA amassed from St. Louis developer and friend of the NGA, colonial-capitalist Paul McKee. This land grab fits the mode of production of the City of St. Louis, which is the largest land bank in the U.S. and the same land bank that swindled African people out of their generational houses.
Let it be clear that the NGA is a notorious spy agency that controls drones remotely that drop bombs on colonized peoples from Africa to Venezuela. Make no mistake about the agents and workers for NGA who will now live in north St. Louis—they will be your neighbors and they will spy on you. In fact, this is organized surveillance of African communities.
Project Connect’s 2,500 pages show gentrification is on the rise. What the plan claims to offer in terms of development is what African communities have always deserved. The difference now and sense of urgency is that white settlers will be relocated and they want amenities like a pickleball court and bike trail. The six communities already targeted for gentrification are Carr Square, Columbus Square, Hyde Park, Jeff Vander-Lou, Old North St. Louis and St. Louis Place.
Keep in mind that while all of this is going on, mass devastation from the EF-3 tornado on May 16, 2025 left African communities throughout the City of St. Louis flattened and flat out of luck. The local government did nothing. Project Connect did nothing. St. Louis Development Corporation did nothing.
Mayor Cara Spencer held useless town hall meetings and so-called resource centers in communities that were far removed from the African communities impacted. Where is the money demanded by the African masses and the Uhuru Movement under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party?
Now funding for gentrification will come from hundreds of funding sources such as the American Rescue Plan Act, the Affordable Housing Assistance Program, the City of St. Louis Alley Maintenance Program and too many more to name in this article.
This erasure is nothing new; Boston, Washington, D.C., Tampa Bay, Tulsa and many more communities with a high percentage of African people have witnessed this. Millcreek Valley is the famously known community in the City of St. Louis that came under attack through urban renewal plans and by St. Louis University, a Jesuit private university with clear ties to slavery.
The colonizers’ plans speak of walkability, improved lighting and more—just a few hallmarks of gentrification and erasure of African communities. This encroachment also threatens institutions that the Uhuru Movement and the African People’s Socialist Party have developed.
One of those hard-fought-for institutions is the Uhuru Foods and Pies Cafe. The City of St. Louis has blocked off driveable passage to the cafe, even though roads all over St. Louis are in need of repair, and barriers popped up overnight shortly after the cafe opened.
The work of the African People’s Education and Defense Fund and the Black Power Blueprint has established material benefits along what is called the West Florissant corridor located in the College Park neighborhood. The powers that be could not gain control of this area because they would have had a fight-back on their hands.
However, Hyde Park, as mentioned above, is a neighborhood less than a mile away from where the work of the Party is located. Here come the spies, and here is what they say they are offering for white settlers: “A major focus is on activating Salisbury Street as a vibrant mixed-use corridor . . . through improved walkability, lighting, landscaping, and programming.”
The Team Four Plan made it clear in 1971 when it used the words “let it rot” so that in the future, major colonial-capitalist industries and developers could take over. Project Connect is not for the people. It is for the ruling class, spies and settler-colonialists who will have free will to spy on the communities and threaten to erase African presence.
Join the fight-back and support the work of the African People’s Education and Defense Fund that fights back against gentrification.
Vanguard Up!
Uhuru Sasa!
