Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative
Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative
In Honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. EJCC fellow Falon Shackelford offers a reflection on MLK the Man, the Holiday and the continuing fight for Environmental Justice. Please read below:
By: Falon Shackelford
Every year on the third Monday of January, the national government of the United States observes the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service to commemorate Dr. King’s birthday as well as his nonviolent contributions to establish respect and justice in the United States. This single day is to meant to promote the legacy of the late Dr. King’s activism and work towards constantly improving the conditions of others. The activism of Martin Luther King Jr. often centered on improving the condition of Blacks and those plagued by poverty in the United States by removing systems of privilege and incorporating humanity and cultural sensitivity in the American social, political, and economic structures. On his dying day in Memphis, Tennessee, the late Dr. King was advocating for safer conditions for waste workers and acknowledging that no person should have to exist in a physically unsafe space to make ends meet. Although not publicized, Martin Luther King Jr.’s last fight was one of environmental justice.
In addition to the clear discrimination in regards to location of toxic emitting facility plants, processing plants, unsafe housing, and physical spaces that are often projected on people of color, the age of innovation and mass production has brought forth yet another fight to the environmental justice movement. Climate change, the change in weather and events over a prolonged period of time, is directly linked to the emissions of greenhouse gases. Climate change is largely responsible for the noticeable instability in patterns of weather and climate that have caused the variety of hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis across the globe. Such events disproportionately affect low-income people and people of color as these groups often lack economic means and political power to relocate and protect themselves. These communities benefit least from irresponsible practices such as dirty forms of energy as such practices often lead to health problems, lack of economic opportunities, and ever present social stigma based on identity. The battle for climate justice is about restoring humanity and equity to groups while acknowledging that life as we know it must accept the environment respect, not drain for resources.
What would Martin Luther King Jr. say if he was alive today? When thinking of the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the various policy based changes that emerged as the results of the Civil Rights Movement, it is crucial to recognize that a fight for a better tomorrow includes not just have the ability to exist in an integrated classroom but to acknowledge the ways we treat, maintain, and allocate our physical spaces and ensure that every person has the ability to be a safe physical space, despite the various components of their identity, rather they be race, class, gender, orientation, or another of factor outside of their choosing. To live in the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. extends beyond a single day of service but activism based on the awareness to all communities about their role in achieving lasting justice in everyday practice.
Falon Shackelford is Political Science Major at Howard University. Shackelford is an inaugural fellow of the Frontline Leaders fellowship a partnership of the Energy Action Coalition Environmental Justice Program.