On Saturday, August 1st I held a workshop that dealt with the Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Community Rights Campaign. The workshop discussed in great detail the campaign itself, the demands on LAUSD, and how we want to change pre-prison conditions in high schools. I was able to present to the group the background and tools needed to recruit other folks around the work we are doing to stop the pre-prisoning of our youth. It is imperative that we stand against the racial profiling, excessive police force and ticketing of our youth. Because of these conditions, students are discouraged to go to school. This isn’t so shocking with LAUSD’s 50% graduation rate and California’s spending on education being 47th out of 50 states and 1st in prison/police spending out of 50 states. When students are discouraged to go to school the lack the skills to be successful citizens and therefore resort to committing crimes of poverty to survive. When in prison, 80% of prisoners do not have a high school diploma. This is not surprising when students are differed from school because of  the constant police harassment in their high schools and neighborhoods. There is an imparitive need for students to have adequate resources in high school to assist with their needs and police do not help to solve the root cause of any situation.

With this Campaign’s demands, we hope to gradate more students!!!

Graduating more students is important to the neighborhoods and communities because that means we have politically conscious young people that are fighting for changes within their communities that not only affect them but will also affect the next generation. It is important to train leaders and organizers that will take the initiative to create a self-sustaining community. The environmental aspects of these young people having leadership and organizing skills means that our community is on its way to improvement.

The book Just Transportation is about justice in the transportation system for people of color, the working class, the poor, women, the elderly, and the disabled. Just Transportation clearly illustrates that the struggle for just transportation is not over. Two of the most historic movements surrounding just transportation are the Freedom Riders and Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. Although those are two historical moments for Black folks, the fight for just transportation goes farther back to after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1^st, 1863. Even with the freeing of slaves, they were not truly free, forced to ride in rail carts in the back or standing up.

Freedom riders of the 1960s challenged transportation “laws” in place during the time period. They challenged interstate traveling even if it resulted in their death. Rosa Park’s refusal to give her seat is also a significant catalyst in history, for she challenged the racist Jim Crow laws in place.

Though landmark decisions such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 were made, the scars and strains of racism are still profoundly embedded in America’s society today, even with a historic shift on November 4^th, 2008.

As stated in the book, unjust transportation policies keep poor people and minorities separate and apart from reaching their full potential. I agree that public transit too often does not link urban job seekers with suburban jobs. It’s no secret that urban job seekers want the white collar, upstanding jobs just like suburban job seekers. We too want a livable wage job. Since transportation isn’t connected, urban folks lose out on opportunities.

It’s not rocket science to find out that transportation affects every aspect of our lives and daily routine. Mobility directly influences where we live, work, play, shop, go to school, and attend medical appointments. The role transportation plays in shaping human interaction and human settlement patterns should be taken into consideration when deciding just transportation policies.

Grassroots community groups across the country have come together to put an end to transportation discrimination. Freeway construction, transit services and investments and facility siting are issues these groups are combating. A Los Angeles-based community organization, the Bus Riders Union, understands that just transportation can only be realized if poor people and people of color receive their fair share of transit services and investments. It is important to view transportation as an environmental, civil rights, and social justice issue. In order to end transportation discrimination, a link needs to be made between unequal treatment on buses and trains with violations of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights.

Well luckily the Bus Riders Union of Los Angeles was able to make that link. In doing so they sued the MTA in 1994. They filed a class action civil rights suit. The plaintiffs of the suit were the Labor/Community Strategy Center, Bus Riders Union, the Korean Immigrant Workers’ Advocates, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference all represented by NAACP Legal Defense. The plaintiffs challenged the use of federal funds in building an expensive rail system and challenged the allocation of public funds in Los Angeles’ two-tiered (bus vs. rail) public transit system.

Some statistics: 90% of Los Angeles transit riders use the bus system (hmmm) the bulk of the dollars were being expended to build a rail system. There were questions of expenditures of  over $700 million on the newly opened Green Line. ( “the line to nowhere” LITERALLY). Fares Decrease- Ridership Increase; Fares Increase- Ridership Decrease (funny ratio)

After some years of court battling, an out of court settlement was reached (not surprised). The Consent Decree of 1996, which expired in 2006 sadly and was not renewed, was reached. In the Decree, monthly passes were kept, biweekly and weekly passes were implemented at reasonable prices, and the MTA promised to keep fares low, purchase 102 new buses over the next 2 years, use CNG fuel, expand bus service to new areas, and implement the Rapid bus service.

Well this seems like a great victory, (it is), but the fight continues with the 2007 fare increases and the continual allocation of funds to an unneeded rail system. Funds are needed more than ever to be put into the bus system. We need to be able to have just transportation as a human and civil right. According to Just Transportation, “a socially just and ecologically sustainable transportation has the potential to increase job and income opportunities, create environmentally safe communities, decrease fossil fuel energy consumption and improve overall social, economic and environmental quality of life.” Of course I agree. A final quote from Just Transportation: “transportation programs that continue to support suburban commuter needs and development at the expense of the urban core contributes to patterns of institutional racism, class bias in urban poor, working poor, and people of color communities.”

Give just transportation for education not long waits on the block where correctional handcuffs await young Tyrone.

The Labor/Community Strategy Center is hosting what promises to be a great night of poetry. [More]