Bernell K. Grier remembers her elders telling her, back in 1969, that Harlem was ripe for gentrification.
“There was a woman and there [were] also a couple of older men that used to talk to me about Harlem and how the community was at risk of being taken over and not really being owned or operated by Blacks who lived in Harlem,” she recalled.
“Back then, I just remember sitting in what used to be called Colonial Park, now it’s called Jackie Robinson Park on Bradhurst Avenue, and just being able to talk about Harlem. There was a lot of abandonment at that time: landlords had abandoned the buildings and people were without heat and hot water. My job was to help people get information on how to complain and get services in their building.
“One of my mentors who ran the program I worked for said ‘Harlem is prime territory. It is an area that when you look at it, it has transportation hubs, every subway system runs here: you can get to New Jersey, you can get to Long Island, it’s prime land. If we as a people in Harlem do not manage to own and control what we have, eventually, we’re going to see Harlem change and it won’t be the Harlem that we know today as being predominantly Black.’”
Grier, who is Harlem born and bred, grew up in the New York City Housing Authority’s Rangel/Colonial Houses. She took the lessons learned from Harlem’s gentrification and today works to ensure that Black communities remain rooted in neighborhoods they have established.
Grier has served as the executive director of the community development corporation IMPACCT Brooklyn since 2016.
IMPACCT used to be called PACC (Pratt Area Community Council). The group helps small businesses with their operations, owns and operates affordable housing developments, and provides classes and assistance to residents in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, and Prospect Heights.
By directing IMPACCT, Grier has come full circle.
She said her parents had the greatest influence on her, raising her to be civically engaged and to be someone who fought for the stability of her community. She recalls conversations with elders who warned her about gentrification in her historically Black neighborhood. She also remembers the talks legendary figures gave at her schools while she was growing up––people like lawyer and business leader, Percy Sutton; former New York City Mayor David Dinkins; and former Harlem Congressmember Charlie Rangel––also swayed her to be concerned about inequity.
Grier had been encouraged by her elementary school teacher, actress Estelle Evans, who, before starring in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962) and “The Learning Tree” (1969), was a teacher in the New York City public school system. “She was my third-grade teacher, and she identified me as an intellectually gifted child. After that I was tested and went through the school system in the intellectually gifted classes and then attended Bronx High School of Science and City College.”
After two years in college, Grier switched to evening school so that she could work during the day. She worked at Chase Bank and joined their accelerated career training program which taught her how to run a bank branch. She later worked with Bank of America and other financial institutions, and joined groups like the Urban Bankers Coalition (now, the Urban Financial Services Coalition) so that she could stay connected with other Black bankers and be a part of programs promoting financial education in the community.
When the concept of community reinvestment became big in the banking community in the 1990s, she jumped on board. As a community development officer, she worked closely with community-based organizations from across New York state, and then later New Jersey and parts of Florida. “I got the opportunity to meet and to fund a lot of the leadership of people in communities that were actively working to preserve and build and enhance communities across the country,” she said. “I liked being able to support them both with the bank’s resources as well as my time and also garnering resources for those organizations.”
But after 30 years in banking, Grier wanted to get back to working directly in the community. She took a job running Neighborhood Housing Services of NYC, worked with the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, and then came to IMPACCT Brooklyn.
“All of my experience in banking and volunteering has prepared me for the job that I have today and that is building supportive as well as income-targeted affordable housing,” Grier said. IMPACCT operates a low-income housing program at the Gibb Mansion building in Bed Stuy, owns and operates thousands of units in mixed-use residential buildings throughout Central Brooklyn, and also conducts a home ownership program.
“In our community organizing team we try our best to get residents to be civically engaged and to organize tenant associations,” Grier said. “If you’re already in a building and a lot of times landlords are trying to push people out of their buildings, we make sure that tenants know their rights. We join with other organizations, different legal services entities like TakeRoot Justice, Brooklyn Legal Services, and the Legal Aid Society to be able to have clinics, so people know their rights and they know how to organize to be able to protect themselves and their homes, and not be pushed out.”