Re-imagining Mattapan: A bike tour with the Ujima Project

From going to community gardens in Mattapan to riding on bike trails forbidden from being constructed in fear of connecting communities, neighborhood projects like the Ujima Project bring communities together in efforts to solve important issues affecting all of us. 

On the sunny Saturday morning of April 27th, a group of bikers gathered at Mattapan station for a bike ride. With the evening being filled with smiles and laughs, my colleagues Ketura, Gloria, and I had the opportunity to explore the neighborhood of Mattapan riding bikes while listening to our guide Shavel’le Oliver share unheard stories of the reimaginings of Mattapan being birthed into a reality. 

At around 11:45, riders gathered at the Mattapan station being greeted by the organizer of the bike ride, Shavel’le helping riders navigate through not only bike paths but also how to work a bike’s gears when going up steep hills and bridges. Biking from Mattapan, the tour took riders down River Street stopping by a community event taking place inside a community garden, hidden behind a line of condos. Parking our bikes by the entrance, everyone quickly toured the garden. With a DJ on set, a station where you can help paint a community mural and buy your tree, the garden had far more to offer compared to just camaraderie. After exiting, Shavel’le explained to us that empty lots seen around the city for years in neighborhoods like Mattapan were exactly what the garden existed as before, a product of the city’s neglect. Shavel’le explained that empty lots around the city are direct outcomes of the city of Boston neglecting these spaces. When we mobilize and come together, she said, neglected spaces can transform into community gardens that have the power to feed a community while combating other issues for example food insecurity and food deserts in the Boston area. 

After visiting the community garden, Shavel’le led us into the Neponset greenway trail beginning back at the Mattapan station where we would ultimately be spending the rest of our time together. On the trail, bikers rode through Mattapan passing behind a playground and right beside the Neponset River. As we made our way through the end of Mattapan we found ourselves in the intersection of a trolley x-ing between lower mills and ended our bike tour in Milton right down the street from a Bank of America. 

Reflecting on our journey throughout the bike tour, in every location there was a different story to share. Learning about the bike path we biked on, Shavelle shared with us the greenway trail connecting more than 4 communities was constantly rejected at community meetings in efforts to be built. With residents of Milton expressing their fear of having a bike path boosting the crime rate in their area, the trail received a lot of pushback. For greenways like this existing in Mattapan, trails like this have the opportunity to promote wellness and reconnect people with nature while living in a polluted city. Greenway trails benefit everyone, however, racial prejudice gets in the way of progression which causes projects like these to be delayed or never truly happen at all. 

Community organizations that promote wellness like the Ujima Project play such a crucial role in organizing people together. Bike tours are the tip of the iceberg of things that the Ujima project does around Boston. Alongside promoting wellness inside the community, the Ujima project also works to uplift local businesses that prioritize equity and sustainability. Biking with the Ujima project is an experience I’ll truly never forget. Being able to learn about spaces built by the community for the community is the true definition of unity done with integral meaning.