Tag: social justice

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MLK DAY 2022: Mobility Is A Racial Justice issue

“…when we talk about transportation, when we talk about planning, when we talk about anything in the built environment, we have to be willing to talk about race.” -Tamika Butler

 

Today on Martin Luther King Day 2022 I present you with impactful thoughts in text and audio from two leaders in Mobility Equity.  Charles T. Brown and Tamika Butler have spoken and written eloquently and tirelessly about the need to make cities and towns fully accessible to people in marginalized communities, and that we must stop policing people of color on bikes and walking.

Street Smart offers a one-stop resource for city leaders and advocates to find what they need to address Mobility Equity, and Transportation as a Social Justice and Racial Justice issue in our cities.

Read on. Please comment.

Onward. -Polli

Arrested Mobility: Exploring the impacts of over-policing Black mobility in the U.S.

“Arrested Mobility is the assertion that Black people and other minorities have been historically and presently denied by legal and illegal authority, the inalienable right to move, to be moved, to simply exist in public space. Unfortunately, this has resulted — and continues to result — in adverse social, political, economic, environmental and health effects that are widespread and intergenerational. But they are preventable, which is why we are here talking about it today.” – Charles T. Brown

 

Mobility Equity: Whose Data Counts?

“Transportation is the prism through which we should see many other social justice issues. Because I can’t be economically mobile, if I’m not able to be mobile. I can’t have health care, education or access to those things if I literally can’t get there.” Tamika Butler

 

Evidence and Insight for Healthy Transportation

“Transportation connects people to the places that are essential for their well being. We believe that transportation systems can create and support healthy, just, and climate-resilient communities.”


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​”Yet, for many people, destinations are too far from home, transit is not reliable, walking and bicycling are impractical, or the streets are not safe. Rather than connecting people to opportunity, lack of adequate transportation is a barrier to reaching employment, schools, health care services, and social networks. Vehicular emissions expose communities to air pollution, increasing their risk of asthma and heart disease. Transportation is also the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the US, driving climate changes that will disproportionately affect many communities of color.”

“Find success stories with key lessons learned in one easy-to-search place. Why re-invent the wheel? Streetsmart offers insight via guides, case studies, and fact sheets relevant to each topic area. Learn from others working on issues similar to yours.”

 

 

 

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Save Asbury’s Waterfront Community Voices – Rev. Gil Caldwell

Development of a members-only beach/pool club on Asbury Park’s North Beach is an issue of social justice, potentially reestablishing what founder Bradley envisioned – a resort for the wealthy, in which he enforced segregation.  Bradley is considered to have set the scene for continuing inequity through decades.

Gil Caldwell is a national and Asbury Park icon working tirelessly throughout his lifetime as a champion of social justice.

“Asbury Park In 2019, a city that boasts of its racial, ethnic, cultural, and economic diversity, is on the verge of expanding its already evident economic segregation, by building beachfront, private pool clubs?” – Gil Caldwell

#boardwalkandbeachesforall

PLEASE ATTEND THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING FEB 13th. AP High School Auditorium.  Learn about development of the North Beach and share your thoughts in the public comment period.

Say it isn’t so!

Reverend Gil Caldwell

“At a time when our President flaunts his ownership of expensive Hotels and Golf Courses, Asbury Park continues to demonstrate that; “Those who have the Gold, Rule”? I believe that Asbury Park and iStar are better than that…I dare Asbury Park to be different! I believe we are, and we can be.” 

“Kay Harris in her letter writes of being excluded on the beachfront because of her race in the 1950’s. I remember my own New Jersey experience in the 1950’s. I was a student at North Carolina A & T College/Greensboro in the 1950’s. I had a part time job and walked 4 miles each day, walking back and forth to my college. Often I would walk by the Woolworth’s Store, wishing that I could sit at the counter to get a coke and a hot dog. But I knew that I would not be served because of my race. (In 1960, that store was the site of sit-ins by students from my college, that helped to integrate white only restaurants and lunch counters). My preacher father and my secretary mother did their best to contribute to the college educations of their four children. But, that was not enough.

My college in an effort to stay afloat economically, had a tradition of a staff person from the financial office coming to classrooms to read the list of students in arrears in their tuition payment. Students whose names were read were expected to get up from their seats and leave the classroom. The day my name was read, I left class with tears in my eyes and visited a Pawn Shop for the first time. One of my Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity brothers knew of my financial plight and invited me to go with him to work in Atlantic City during the summer. I was excited. My tuition needs would be met, and I would experience for the first time, northern racial integration.

Much to my surprise, the hotels in which I worked, and the restaurants where I washed dishes, pots and pans, would not accept blacks as customers. Hotels in which I could not sleep as a guest, and restaurants where I could not sit at a table and eat as a customer because of my race. In Atlantic City, New Jersey, “Up North”!

Fast forward. Asbury Park In 2019, a city that boasts of its racial, ethnic, cultural, and economic diversity, is on the verge of expanding its already evident economic segregation, by building beachfront, private
pool clubs? “Say it isn’t so!” At a time when our President flaunts his ownership of expensive Hotels and Golf Courses, Asbury Park continues to demonstrate that; “Those who have the Gold, Rule”? I believe that Asbury Park and iStar are better than that.

A win/win resolution to this debate would demonstrate that democracy in Asbury Park is not just talk, it is walk! Let us give Historians the opportunity to be able to write in the future, that, “In 2019, a corporate entity, iStar, and Asbury Park, initiated a plan/resolution that remembered the negative history of racial segregation in Asbury Park, by combating private sponsored economic segregation. They realized that if American capitalism did not break the back of economic segregation, the unknowing public would look toward the possibilities of socialism.” I dare Asbury Park to be different! I believe we are, and we can be.”