Bayview Newspaper

Marie Harrison is Greenaction's Environmental Justice and Green Energy Community Organizer, and is a columnist for the Bayview Newspaper

See Also:

6/11/03 noon Protest and Press Conference at front gate of PG&E Hunters Point power plant, Evans Street, San Francisco. Protest violation of civil rights of Bayview Hunters Point residents by PG&E and state and federal agencies.

6/11/03 Bayview Hunters Point residents, Greenaction and other community groups file Civil Rights Complaint against PG&E and California ISO agency!

6/11/03 Press Release

For more information, contact:

Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

The New Civil Rights Movement

By Marie Harrison, Bayview Newspaper

On May 6, 1960 President Eisenhower signed into law one of the first Civil Rights Acts protecting African Americans in their struggle to have their voices heard. Four years later, Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 shortly after the assassination of John Kennedy. These key laws gave African Americans and poor people of color the chance to participate and be heard, and to have legal protection from discrimination and injustice.

Many of us have been left out for so long that we've forgotten we have rights. We have the right to live, work, worship and play in our communities-and the right to a safe and healthy environment. More than thirty years after the first Civil Rights Acts our community continues to tolerate some of the highest unemployment rates in San Francisco, high infant mortality, high rates of cancer and respiratory problems, neighborhoods filled with toxic chemicals, and air filled with particulate matter from two power plants within walking distance of each other. Even our homes aren't safe-almost one out of six of our children has asthma made worse by indoor air pollution. Many can't even finish a day at school without a visit to the nurse's office to use a steroid inhaler.

This battle isn't just for a space on the bus, its a fight for our basic human rights: to live, work, worship and play in a community free from a toxic soup--with gainful employment and the right to be heard. It is no longer acceptable for companies such as PG&E to fill our air with harmful pollutants and continue to claim that they are good neighbors. It is no longer acceptable for our Navy to abandon a shipyard filled with hazardous waste, or for our City to allow polluters to leave their toxic mess in our community. It is no longer acceptable for agencies such as the California Independent Systems Operator, the California Energy Commission, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the City of San Francisco to allow corporate polluters to fill our air, water, and soil with toxic chemicals that destroy human life-and pretend at the same time to be representing our best interests. It is no longer acceptable for communities who are not directly in harms way to turn a blind eye or deaf ear to the pleas and cries of a community who sits at ground zero.

The Civil Rights Movement was born in places in places like Bayview Hunters Point, Potrero Hill, Midway Village and Richmond because poor communities and communities of color were tired and fed up with not being represented, not being heard, and not being given a place at the table. Then it was about the vote---now, it's about the right to breathe clean air, live on safe ground, and raise our children without fear of the environment where they live and play. We will no longer sit idly by while our Civil Rights are being trampled on. We demand that companies such as Pacific Gas and Electric stop using fossil fuels and adopt clean green energy so that the next generation will have to suffer as we have. We also demand that the state of California, and Federal Government, start enforcing the principles of environmental justice.

This is our new battle cry: No Justice…No Peace. You will us see us in the streets. You will see us in the courthouses. We will not rest until our Civil Rights are upheld. We will not accept compromises that threaten the health and well being of our cities, our communities, or our families.

The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit adopted the following Principles of Environmental Justice at their meeting on October 24-27, 1991 in Washington, D.C.:

• Environmental justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all people, free from any from of discrimination or bias.
• Environmental Justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things.
• Environmental justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples.
• Environmental justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production.
• Environmental justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement and evaluation.
• Environmental justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care.

Based on these principles and many others, it is time for a new Civil Rights Movement to take back our community from the polluters and ensure that elected officials work for our benefit-not for the bottom line of some major corporation. They don't care about our lives. They don't care about our children. The only thing they care about is the almighty dollar. We are doing a disservice to those who fought so hard for the Civil Rights Acts of 1960 and 1964, if we don't use the laws they struggled so hard to pass.