Posted April 6, 2023 in Weblog

By Nailah Pope-Harden

I’ve been reflecting on why transportation justice is so essential to me. I got here to ClimatePlan, after years of organizing round varied environmental justice points. Early in my organizing profession, I realized the distinction between environmentalism and environmental justice the arduous means. As soon as, I sat by a gathering the place folks named bushes by their scientific names however requested me for a nickname as a result of ‘Nailah’ was too troublesome. I heard predominantly white communities advocate to protect land for birds however had been silent about waste therapy facilities sited subsequent to me and my BIPOC neighbors. What all the time floored me was these two totally different worlds had been usually separated by a highway. 

For me, combating for environmental justice meant I wanted to tackle conventional environmentalism and structural racism. So I took my ardour and frustration, bottled it up, and began organizing. One of many first campaigns I used to be concerned with was restoring bus service in South Sacramento. Just a few months into this marketing campaign, Oscar Grant was killed by BART Police in Oakland, California. He was 22; I used to be 21. The Fruitvale BART Station was inside strolling distance of the place I had simply moved from in Oakland. This expertise was a core reminiscence in my advocacy, I used to be advocating for extra public transit whereas seeing my equal killed utilizing public transit. It created this lasting reminiscence and a deep want to see my folks get to the place they should go.

The increasingly I do that work, the extra I come to know how complicit our roads are within the murdering of Black and Brown our bodies. It’s maddening. How usually do we’ve to listen to about routine site visitors stops, jaywalking, or how merely working or strolling in a neighborhood can result in dying? For a lot too many BIPOC folks, concrete and asphalt are the very last thing they’ll see of their lifetimes. 

If it’s not the enforcement and preservation of our roads, it’s the development of them that displace low-income communities and communities of coloration disproportionately. Our roads are complicit within the taking of land, stifling generational wealth, and dividing communities. If not the development of our roads, it’s the air pollution from vehicles on the roads and the dearth of insurance policies to guard and monitor air high quality in low-income communities and communities of coloration. Once more, our roads, our lack of intentionality, and our negligence in constructing correct infrastructure are all complicit within the murdering of Black and Brown our bodies. Each misplaced crosswalk, cease signal, or site visitors sign can be utilized as a software for dying. The place a highway is constructed can grant or deny entry to numerous alternatives for generations of households. 

Now, I’m not saying roads themselves are the issue. I’m saying roads, like some other useful resource, can be utilized as instruments for oppression. It isn’t that I don’t see worth in highways, streets, and roads; I simply need streets and roads that join us. I would like neighborhoods which might be accessible. I would like choices and flexibility in how I transfer by a metropolis. I would like bike paths, sidewalks, public transportation choices. I would like shade bushes and clear air. I would like pathways in my neighborhood that results in park and out of doors areas. I need to get to my vacation spot in probably the most peaceable, wholesome means potential, and I would like that for EVERYONE. 

As a brand new Board Member of America Walks and California Walks, I hope to make use of my lived expertise {and professional} experience to assist extra folks get to the place they need to go. Within the meantime, As I say to anybody and everybody leaving my home, get house protected and textual content me while you get there.

In her position at ClimatePlan, she is answerable for increasing the community presence, cultivating new members, and guaranteeing the mission and imaginative and prescient of the group are being carried out. She involves this place with years of group organizing and coalitions constructing expertise that spans neighborhood, regional, state, and nationwide social justice campaigns. The through-line in Nailah’s private {and professional} life is all the time guaranteeing her son has a wholesome, protected, loving setting and future. She does this by constructing group in every single place she goes, studying from these round her, and being open to (transformative) change. Nailah is positioned in Sacramento.