The future of baseball may be undecided, but many African-American residents are ready to move on.
The Coalition for Social Justice, part of the National People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, held a protest outside Tropicana Field on March 31, 1998, before the first Tampa Bay Devil Rays game in history. The protesters demanded social justice and economic development for African-Americans. The Gas Plant district, a historic black area, was bulldozed to build the dome in the late 1980s. But the promises of jobs and economic development that would come with baseball went unfulfilled. Now African-American residents say they are indifferent to the fate of the Rays.
