From DeRidder to Cambridge: A Thanksgiving Reflection on Home, History, and Hope

As we enter the Thanksgiving season, I find myself thinking about the places that shape us—how the streets where our families began can echo into the futures we build. Not long ago, I spent time researching the exact part of DeRidder, Louisiana, where my mother grew up during the Jim Crow era. The maps I found revealed neighborhoods carved by segregation, railroad tracks that doubled as boundaries, and an environment where the possibilities available to Black families were unjustly constrained. My mother’s childhood unfolded in a world that dictated where Black people could live, what they could own, and how far they were allowed to dream.

That history moves with me, especially now. I live in Cambridge, and the communities where HarveyReed builds—Cambridge, Arlington, Medford, Watertown, Malden, Somerville, Waltham, Belmont—are not abstract “markets” to me. They are my community. They are where I raise my daughters, where I worship, where I shop, where I vote, and where I have poured years of civic leadership and service. These towns are part of the story I am still writing, and part of the future I want other families to have access to.

Working as a Black woman developer in these communities is not without its challenges. While the geography has shifted dramatically since my mother’s childhood in DeRidder, the structural barriers have not disappeared. Despite deep talent across the country, Black developers still represent a fraction of the industry. Opportunities flow through longstanding relationships that we were structurally excluded from for generations. I am now building in those very spaces.

And yet, during this season of reflection, I am grounded in gratitude—for my mother’s resilience, for the path she carved despite every barrier, and for the privilege of building in communities many in my family could not have imagined living in freely decades ago.

This is where HarveyReed’s mission becomes personal. We are committed to developing market-rate housing that supports the real housing needs of people who live, work, and build community here. This work is not about elitism or exclusivity; it is about belonging—creating homes that reflect the diversity, vibrancy, and aspirations of the people who want to access them.

When I walk sites in Cambridge or nearby communities, I feel the distance between my mother’s segregated neighborhood in DeRidder and the life I am building now. That distance is not just measured in miles or time—it is measured in possibility. In DeRidder, my mother’s reality was shaped by exclusion. In Cambridge, my work is shaped by a commitment to housing access that aligns with community needs.

I build because I want the world that constrained my mother to be unimaginable to my daughter. And I build because I believe that representation in real estate development matters. It changes who sits at decision-making tables, how capital is deployed, and who gets to participate in shaping a community's future.

HarveyReed is both an answer to history and a statement of hope. We exist to expand who gets to build, who gets to invest, and who gets to belong.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the journey—from the segregated streets of DeRidder to the interconnected communities of Greater Boston, which I call home —and for the opportunity to reimagine what is possible for the generations that follow.

Manikka Bowman, Founder