The Knicks and New York's Disappearing Black Communities

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist

17 Jun 2026

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It is true that the New York Knicks' journey to a championship brought disparate communities together, but gentrification remains the norm in the city that is the capital of capital. Black people are still being displaced at a breakneck pace.

“But what about the people who are renting? They can't afford it anymore! You can't afford it. People want (to) live in Fort Greene. People wanna live in Clinton Hill. The Lower East Side, they move to Williamsburg, they can't even afford fuckin', motherfuckin' Williamsburg now because of motherfuckin' hipsters. What do they call Bushwick now? What's the word? [Audience: East Williamsburg]” - Spike Lee in 2014

Everyone loves a winning hometown team. The New York Knickerbockers basketball team, aka the Knicks, won the National Basketball Association (NBA) championship on June 13, 2026. They had not done so since 1973, when legends like Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, and Bill Bradley were playing. The end of five decades of disappointment created an infectious euphoria across all five boroughs that had not been seen in recent memory.

Impromptu watch parties sprang up across the city as neighbors came together to see their team overcome past failure and prove naysayers wrong to win in a dramatic fashion. It was nice to see the camaraderie, but it masked very deep divisions amongst New Yorkers. Social media captured all the fun and all of the realities of life in the city.

It was clear to anyone who might not have been paying attention that New York has a smaller Black population than it once did. Communities that were once entirely Black are either less Black or have a small or even nonexistent Black population.

Among those in the now-famous popular culture images is a Black man named Ramell-Correen “Cheeks” Frederick, who was seen in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with his sewing machine as he embroidered Knicks jerseys and caps for anyone who asked. His presence reinforced the beauty of a city united by a feeling of community and a man who chose to share his skills at that moment. But some of the photos revealed something else that was very important.

In this columnist’s younger years in the 1990s, the Fort Greene neighborhood was almost completely Black, as white people were rarely seen. Now, Mr. Frederick was in a mixed crowd that included many of the gentrifying newcomers.

Perhaps the most famous Knicks fan of all is film director Spike Lee, who in 2014 made note of the disappearance of Black communities in New York. Lee did nothing more than make an important observation, that Black people were being displaced by real estate market manipulations, which forced them out and that newcomers saw themselves as having “Christopher Columbus syndrome” and behaved as the colonizing Europeans did, expecting local populations to get out of their way or be attacked in a myriad of ways if they resisted.

As expected, Lee was applauded by Blacks and derided by whites. He was accused of being a racist and of having no legitimacy because he no longer lived in Brooklyn himself. Of course, the real reason for criticism was that he said something true about white people that they did not want to hear spoken aloud, even as they continued acting like the so-called explorers and settlers of old.

After the Knicks won their title on the road, Lee was seen back in Fort Greene as he was paraded through the streets and treated as though he was actually a member of the Knicks winning squad. Once again, this neighborhood, like others in New York, was shown to be mixed, a stark change from the days of redlining and unofficial segregation, which had made it the home of a Black community.

Social media footage told the story of what could easily be observed by anyone paying even cursory attention. In the last 20 years, more than 200,000 Black people have left New York City. Most of them have moved to southern states in search of more affordable housing, as Lee pointed out in his now-famous 2014 comments. “They're moving to Atlanta, they're moving to North Carolina. They got a house, they got a lawn, they got a backyard, they have less taxes… New York City's a hard place, and so if you've worked all your life and you're retired, they're selling their houses, and I don't blame them.”

Of course, many of these reverse migrants were never homeowners. They may be able to make that leap in a more affordable state or just pay less in rent than they would in New York. Like Lee, Black people are excoriated when pointing out that these migratory patterns are not just random demographic changes. They come about because the capital that had been taken out of large cities for many years was put back, and made neighborhoods that were blighted because of economic and public policy decisions, and that were designated for Black people only, were suddenly declared “hot” in real estate developer parlance and opened up for white people.

Brooklyn was and still is the gentrification epicenter. In 2015 an argument over Brooklyn sidewalk space was caught on camera with a man saying, “The only reason white people are living here is because I settled this fucking neighborhood for you.” The loudmouth became the object of scorn and was dubbed the Christopher Columbus of Brooklyn but there was more truth than jest in his comment.

Gentrifiers are called “pioneers” and “homesteaders” when they move back to the cities their parents and grandparents fled at the height of what became known as “white flight.” The people originally known as settlers were the first genocidaires across the United States, stealing land, killing the indigenous, and expanding slavery.

The new pioneers are equally insistent that the original inhabitants have no rights that ought to be respected. When Lee and others point out that money or lack thereof should not be the deciding factor in determining where people can live, the 21st-century settlers become defensive and dismissive. The protection they have from politicians and the real estate developers who decide who will and won’t run for office gives them freedom to drive people out and to ignore any complaints about their actions.

The 1970s, when the Knicks last won a title, are often called the “bad old days” by New Yorkers. New York City was going broke. Politicians like Jimmy Carter, held a campaign event in a Bronx vacant lot surrounded by abandoned buildings.

But in that era, neo-liberalism had not taken hold. There was poverty, but also affordable housing, even for low-income workers. Home ownership in Black neighborhoods was not uncommon. Now the median home price in the borough is $990,000 and is directly related to the influx of white people who are able to benefit from the gentrification model of development, the only model that is allowed to exist.

As Black Agenda Report stated in 2016, “... the urban ethnic cleansers want Black people gone – period. Their purpose is to make life unbearable for the Black poor, to uproot them by creating as hostile an environment as possible, in order to clear the way for new, whiter, more affluent populations.” It is impossible to hide how the city’s demographics have changed, even as the people gather together in celebration of their team’s victory. Aside from having a winning team, the New York of 2026 is nothing like that of 1973, when Black people could still claim spaces in the city. Those days are long gone.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.