The Southern Observer

Lawmakers Dismayed by State of Gulf Coast

RICHMOND

Activist asks for casino land at discount

Author says Creoles deserve payback for racial injustice

- Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, October 29, 2004



Gilbert Martin can't pronounce Point Molate correctly and so sometimes calls it "Point Whatever-it-is." He's never been to the former naval fuel depot in Richmond, but the 81-year-old Creole activist firmly believes the city is bound by the Louisiana Purchase to sell the land to him, not a casino developer or refinery.

The small peninsula, with sweeping views of San Pablo Bay and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, is among the most coveted properties in the Bay Area. Harrah's wants to build a Las Vegas-style casino resort there. Chevron, which owns an adjacent refinery, wants to turn it into open space.

Now Martin, an author and founder of the International French Creole Cultural Society and the Louisiana Reclamation Movement, is demanding the right of first refusal to buy all 400 acres -- at a deeply discounted price -- as payback for the decades of racial injustice he says his people have endured.

"If we don't get this Point Whatever-it-is, then we've got to start raising some hell," said Martin, a New Orleans native and former Marine who moved to the Veteran's Home of California in Yountville about eight years ago to use the facility's law library to research his reparations case.

After reading about the Richmond City Council debating whether to sell Point Molate to Chevron for $80 million or to casino developer Upstream Development for $50 million, Martin sent Mayor Irma Anderson a letter earlier this month making his claim.

She passed the letter on to the city attorney's office.

"I'll take a look at it, but I don't know how far it'll go," said Acting City Attorney Everett Jenkins, who has written numerous history books, including one on the black quest for freedom.

Never mind that Martin's organization, founded in 1973, has only six active members and just enough money to keep the bank from closing its account. He says he represents all French Creoles in his mission to claim Point Molate, and he hopes many will donate money to buy the land.

This latest and most bizarre twist yet in the fate of Point Molate dates to a chapter in fifth-grade history books: the Louisiana Purchase.

According to Martin, the United States has violated the treaty since it was signed in 1803 because it failed to provide French Creoles -- Louisiana natives of mixed race and French ancestry -- and their descendents rights guaranteed to them in the agreement, but denied to them because of the color of their skin.

Therefore, he says, Creoles are entitled to tax refunds, tax exemptions and reparations in the form of Point Molate because a handful of French Creoles, some of them his relatives, live in Richmond.

And while few in City Hall -- or elsewhere -- seem to be taking Martin seriously, he insists he has a solid case and three decades of research to back it up.

"Point Molate is going to be used as a stepping stone ... a test case," Martin said, after asking how to pronounce it. (Moe-LAH-tee.) "(The government) owes us and we want to get something from it. Richmond is a part of California. California itself is indebted to us."

If offered the right of first refusal, Martin wants 90 days to raise the money to buy the land. He's not sure how much he'd be willing to pay, but says it won't be full price because, as he wrote in his letter to the city, "the cost of Point Molate can easily be deducted from what is already owed to us."

He'd like to use Point Molate as an international trading post and build an academy of industrial arts, where people could learn "trades they can use not only in Richmond but around the world."

"We can bring to Richmond inspirational value, identity and self-esteem and a brighter future than either Chevron or Upstream," Martin said. "And by uniting with our 50 million cultural kin around the globe, we can open up many lucrative avenues for blacks throughout the United States and the world over."

After the French sold the Louisiana territory for $15 million to the newly formed American government, many French living in Louisiana at the time made the same claim that Martin is making now, said Terrence Fitzmorris, director of Tulane University's Institute for the Study of New Orleans and an expert in Louisiana history.

"That was claimed by the French minister here before the ink was even dried," Fitzmorris said Tuesday during a telephone interview.

The Louisiana Purchase treaty states that "the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union ... and admitted as soon as possible according to the principles of the federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all these rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States ... ."

And while Martin says he and other Creoles were denied such rights -- including those of full citizenship and property ownership because they are black -- Fitzmorris says Martin will have a difficult time obtaining reparations.

"Politically, I think this guy's way off base," Fitzmorris said. "What are you going to do after 200 years? How do you define Creole, and how do you define the linage and how do you know those people out in California are the descendents of anyone who lived in Louisiana then?"

E-mail Cecilia M. Vega at cvega@sfchronicle.com.