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African-American History
Making The King Legacy Come Alive
by Bernice Powell Jackson
January is the time of year that I focus not only on the
Martin Luther King, Jr. that we so conveniently remember when we recite the
lovely "I Have a Dream " speech, but the Martin Luther King who
fearlessly challenged the systems of injustice which have made millions of
people poor, which have marginalized people of color and which were responsible
for an unjust war in Viet Nam.
I remember the Martin Luther King, Jr. who afflicted the comfortable and
comforted the afflicted. But perhaps the best thing that we can all do to
celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. is not just to go to the prayer
breakfasts and religious services which remember this great man, but to get
involved ourselves in the multitude of issues of injustice around us.
One such issue is environmental justice or environmental racism - the dumping
of toxic wastes in communities of color across this nation, and indeed, around
the world. For more than 15 years the Commission for Racial Justice has been
working on environmental justice and that continues to be important work for us.
For this MLK day, a group of African- American leaders from around the
country are focusing our attention on environmental racism and how it impacts
the Black community in particular. These leaders are coming together in
the nation's capital at the Mayor's Office for a press and community briefing on
the contamination in our communities. They will look at contamination of
Superfund sites, those sites where corporations have dumped illegally toxic
materials, often in abandoned warehouses or into the ground around plants, and
which now have been designated by the federal government as sites which must be
cleaned up.
They will look at pollution issues such as dioxin contamination which often
happens in poor and Black communities when plants release this deadly chemical
into the air. Dioxin is also released in the burning of medical wastes by
hospitals in their incinerators, many of which are near our communities.
These African-American leaders are also examining the health impacts of
environmental racism for our communities, which face a myriad of health crises.
Our children, for instance, suffer from abnormally high rates of asthma and lead
poisoning and we also see higher incidences of cancer, birth defects and immune
system diseases such as lupus in African- American adults, which are sometimes
related to toxic wastes in our environment. But environmental justice has
other significant impacts on our communities as well, particularly economic
impact. For instance, there are transportation concerns which relate as more and
more jobs move to the suburbs which means people need cars to work since public
transit is seldom a possibility.
In some cases, businesses have chosen to move out of the cities because of
the contaminated sites left behind by now-closed companies, which means fewer
jobs near our communities. All of this means that African Americans and others
are facing a national state of emergency because of environmental racism and we
hear little about this from our presidential candidates as we talk about our
nation's agenda for the new century.
This is an issue which Dr. King most surely would be speaking out on were he
still alive. This is an issue which we all must become involved in. Ask your elected officials at all levels
about environmental racism in your own community.
Become knowledgeable about where the toxic sites are near where you live or
work or where your children go to school or where you worship. Get busy with the
work of challenging the wrongs wherever they may be that's the greatest way to
honor a great man.
(For more information on the National State of Emergency briefing contact
Damu Smith at (202)319-2410 or Kim Freeman at (202)265-3263, ext.230).
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