Читать книгу Lessons in Environmental Justice - Группа авторов - Страница 12

The U.S. civil rights movement waged an assault on various forms of structural racism that penetrated the daily lives of African Americans and other people of color—in voting, housing, education, employment, transportation, and equal access to other public accommodations. Protesters—young and old—were beaten, hosed with water cannons, attacked with vicious police dogs, harassed, and jailed, and some were killed in their quest for equal treatment. Yet, they persisted in their intergenerational quest for justice.

It is worth noting that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. went to Memphis, Tennessee, in April 1968 to support the environmental and economic justice struggle of 1,300 striking sanitation workers from Local 1733. The strike shut down garbage collection and sewer, water, and street maintenance. Clearly, the Memphis struggle was much more than a garbage strike. The “I AM A MAN” signs that black workers carried reflected the larger struggle for human dignity and rights. Black sanitation workers were on strike because of unequal pay, discriminatory labor practices, and unsafe work conditions that resulted in disproportionately high rates of injuries and deaths among them. They were also striking to be treated as men—with the same dignity and respect accorded white city workers. For Memphis strikers, Black Workers Mattered. Memphis was Dr. King’s “last campaign.” He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, but his legacy lives on and is an integral part of anti-racism movements around jobs, environment, health, transportation, land use, smart growth, energy, climate, and criminal justice.