Follow-up: What happened to South Dallas’ Malcolm X Plaza? 

Neighbors say the temporary improvements fell short of long-term impact

In summer 2022 South Dallas neighbors watched as a vacant parking lot on Malcolm X Boulevard transformed into the “Malcolm X Plaza” — a colorful meeting space with basketball goals, a sports court and outdoor seating.

Two years later, the lot sits empty except for a discarded chair and some scattered old clothes and rags. Weeds grow in between the cracks on the now-faded painted cement.

“It is another person coming to use non-profit dollars that they have to spend to help out the poor little Black folks, the poor little minorities, and nothing was poured into the community of substance,” says Tramonica Brown, executive director of the nonprofit Not My Son. At the time, her office was right across the street from the parking lot-turned-plaza.

Brown says neighbors were upset about how the plaza came to exist, and now wonder what was even the point.

“Wanting to create a transformative space is awesome,” Brown says. “But if you don’t have all of the pieces to the puzzle, can we make this last — especially in South Dallas?”

Malcolm X Plaza was spearheaded by Child Action Poverty Lab (CPAL), which partnered with Better Block, a nonprofit that gives communities tools to grow their neighborhoods. Together, with a $100,000 grant from the Santander Foundation, they converted the vacant lot into a plaza for three months — from June through August — during DFW’s fourth hottest summer on record.

On the plaza’s opening day, TV crews and newspapers celebrated the renovated space with live music and food, focusing their coverage on community togetherness. Dallas Free Press’ story focused on the plaza’s overarching goal of reducing violent crime in the neighborhood.

Goal: Reduce crime in South Dallas with a pop-up gathering space

At the time, CPAL’s senior analytics director Owen Wilson-Chavez said their research had found that this particular city block in South Dallas was 564 times more likely to see violent gun crime than any of the other 35,744 blocks in the southeastern section of the city.

Wilson-Chavez said studies showed that gathering spaces reduce crime. CPAL had seen it before in a Better Block pop-up in the Vickery Meadow neighborhood in northeast Dallas. 

Rachel Tache, CPAL’s director of neighborhood insights, told us in February in an email that during the Malcolm X Plaza’s three months of existence, crime fell 55% in the immediate area of Malcolm X Boulevard and Marburg Street, and arrests decreased by 20% between 2019 and 2022. Over this same period, there was a 212% decrease in violent offenses within a half mile of the plaza. 

Tache emphasized in her email that many different activities that were occurring in the area during the project period, and cautioned against attributing the changes to any one intervention.

Wilson-Chavez no longer works at CPAL, and Tache is in a different role at the organization as a community psychologist. Patrick Averhart, CPAL’s current director of neighborhood insights, says that “we didn’t waste our time. It did affect crime. It did have an effect on the neighborhood.”

Averhart also continues to lead the United People’s Coalition, a mutual aid nonprofit and a CPAL community partner that handled a lot of the on-site programming for Malcolm X Plaza.

“The philosophy behind reducing crime was engaging the people with direct services, with programming, with activities,” Averhart says. “We hosted a birthday party and, two weeks later, we hosted a candlelight vigil. Communities need these spaces for a plethora of reasons.”

Averhart worked closely with CPAL as general on-site management for the plaza project. He spent many afternoons simply handing out cold bottled water and hygiene products.  He even helped negotiate the space, connecting CPAL with Oak Hill Baptist Church, which owns the vacant parking lot. Averhart’s uncle Corey Jackson was pastor at the time. He has since moved to another church in Fort Worth. 

Avehart shared that, in conversations with neighbors, his team heard testimonials from individuals who said they stopped stealing because the essential items they needed each week were being provided through the pr