SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — The Savannah College Of Art And Design is receiving backlash from community members. 

They claim the school is negatively impacting growth across the Hostess City. 

Several local groups speaking out today against SCAD saying it’s time for the private college to do its part when it comes to growth in downtown Savannah. 

Members of the community came together early Sunday afternoon to bring attention to what they say are ongoing issues SCAD has failed to recognize. 

Lindsey Grovenstein told WSAV News 3, “The SCAD museum is doing a special where they are conducting tours, like actual bus tours of the city where they’re claiming that they have a commitment and they’re preserving Black history and they’re showing how they have shown their commitment, they’ve actually done the exact opposite”.

leaders such as historian Dr. Amir Jamal Toure, says the college has continued to devalue Black communities—forcing families out of their homes and businesses…

“We see an apartment building now taken away from the elderly and the disabled,” Dr. Toure said. “That we see communities that once hired people who have families there, no longer go in those communities. No longer the people that were a part of the foundation of Savannah. We are the foundation of Savannah, and we demand that the respect be accorded to those people, and we look out for the least and left out.”

SCAD, aware of the protests outside its campus says, the private college has a more than 40 year history of re-investment into Savannah’s Black community and the history tour is part of that. Dr. Toure said, however, that’s not enough. 

“We need to see a change and tell the leaders who are complicit in this also to say no longer, no longer wiping out communities, no longer having the communities economically segregated and that’s what it is economic resegregation and so that needs to change right now.”