On May 14, 2022, the City of Buffalo’s history was rewritten. It was a new chapter of darkness born from a racially motivated mass shooting at 1275 Jefferson Avenue: A Tops Supermarket, one of very few large grocers on the city’s predominantly Black East Side.

The targeting of Buffalo’s Black community and the closure the grocery store many of its residents relied on exposed long-standing issues on the city’s East Side — food apartheid, scarcity in resources, disinvestment fueled by systemic racism — and compounded others — lasting trauma, concerns of community exploitation and deepened public distrust.

With Buffalo on the world stage, thousands of people poured in condolences, tributes and promises to help devastated members of its community. They also poured in money. Lots of it.

The giving began in 2022, almost instantly, but it’s continued every year. Political pledges. Large organized funds. Major corporate gifts. Small, but meaningful, donations from the average person.

But four years after the attack that claimed 10 lives, injured three others and left lasting harm across Buffalo’s Black community, some of those most affected are still asking: What is there to show for all of the promises and, more importantly, the money?

Read Part I below

Part II releases Monday, June 1

Part III releases Wednesday, June 3