Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 September 2001 — Page 4

PAGE A4

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7,2001

Blacks more visible in environmental movement

By MITCH STACY ATLANTA (AP) — Vernon Jones’ lirst major initiative alter taking over as DeKalb County's chief executive was nersuading voters to raise their own taxes to protect greenspace and buy more land for parks. It's not what most people expected of the first Black to lead the county of VOO.OOO residents, more than half of whom are Black. Yet Jones was the chief architect and flag-waver for the $125 million bond referendum,’and voters unproved it by a 3-2 margin in March. Mans environmentalists marveled that a leader in a community with bigcitv problems would take such a stand. After all. cm ironmeptalism has been considered the territory of mostly white communities with money and time on their hands. And Black leaders usually said they had more important things to fight for and couldn't worry about environmentalism. But Jones, a 40-year-old former state representative who grew up on a farm in rural North Carolina, insists that protecting the natural environment has always been a colorblind pursuit. Now, with 70 percent of DeKalb County already crowded w ith homes and businesseis.

there is a sense of urgency. “People were tired of seeing a community go from a forest to something that looked like a desert,” Jones said. "They didn’t want it anymore. They wanted somebody to respond. I came along at the right time.” Other Blacks are coming along, too. Black communities have for decades led the environmental justice movement, working to prevent companies or governments from putting landfills and incinerators in mostly poor, minority communities. Only recently have Blacks gotten involved in significant and organized numbers in land conservation issues, preservation and land-trust, organizers say. “It’s obvious to me that it’s now hot on the screen for them, that this is one of the good tools to make their communities healthy,” says Norma Cassel Buckley, project manager for the Georgia office of Trust for Public Land, which helps buy land for preservation. "We are being called in by predominantly African-American neighborhoods to protect the land that they love,” she said. Trust for Public Land has helped buy 67 acres of greenspace for preservation this year in the predominantly Black Beecher Hills community in southwest

Atlanta. Bruce Morton, 32, who played on the trails as a kid and still rides his mountain bike there, was one of the local residents who took the lead on the project. “Black people have not gotten involved using the excuse that they have more important survival issues to deal with,” Morton says. "Well, we need air and water to survive, not just the paycheck. It makes sense.” He scoffs, however, at the notion that Black communities have just recently taken an interest in environmentalism. It’s just that now some of the efforts are more organized and the mainstream conservation groups are starting to notice. “From my view, six years ago when I started, it kind of reinforced the perception that conservationists are rich, uppity white people who won’t deal with people they don’t want to deal with,” says Morton, who works in communications for the Atlanta City Council. But that’s starting to change, he says. “I think it’s been to the detriment of both sides that these partnerships weren’t formed long ago,” he says. “I’m glad people are starting to wake up and notice that we are involved and concerned about our communities”

Robert Bullard is director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University and the author of 10 books on the subject. He says Black communities’ interest in their greenspaces was bom out of the de-cades-old environmental-justice movement and is certainly nothing new.. “This notion that we’re just now discovering the fact that we like trees and we like clean water and clean air and wilderness, that’s all bunk,” Bullard says. “It’s the fact that it is more organized, it is more vocal.” Bullard notes that when he first published the People of Color Environmental Groups directory in 1990, there were 200 listings. The 2000 edition is an inch thick and lists more than 400 groups. “What’s happening now is more and more organizations — primarily white organizations — are discovering that there’s a host of activities out there now in communities of color because of the convergence of environmentalism, civil rights, social justice and the notion that your property values can be enhanced when you have greenspace,” Bullard says. “These are not things that are just preserved for the white middle class.” Jennifer McCabe, a field program assistant with the Wilderness Society,

works with children in a nature center in

southwest Atlanta as part of an effort to

vr.

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get minorities more involved and interested in the group’s activities. For whatever reasons, they have not partici-

pated in the past, she says.

“It definitely has to be changed," she

says. “And it is changing.” Audrey Peterman, who is Black,

recalls showing up at a Sierra Club meeting in South Florida once with her husband and being asked, "What brings " you here?” She answered, “Our truck.” Peterman and her husband, Frank, have helped lead an effort to revive the " North Fork of the New River, an urban ' waterway in Fort Lauderdale that feeds the Everglades. A journalist who writes about environmental issues for Black newspapers, Peterman also revels in taking inner-city kids out on the river

and into the woods.

“These organizations have not focused on engaging diversity,” she says. “It’s been more convenient to say those people are not interested." But she sees that changing, too, she says, as mainstream environmental groups find it necessary to diversify ' ‘ along with America’s population. “It’s not like we weren’t always

here,” she says.

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Civil rights leader criticizes Blade! police chief’s t . dismissal EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — The president of the Evansville' NAACP chapter is criticizing the mayor’s demotion of the city’s fir^t Black police chief, calling the moye “unkind and unprofessional.” | The Rev. Gerald Arnold of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said the chapter has not decided whit — if anything — to do to proteit Mayor Russ Lloyd’s dismissal if Marvin Guest. Dpvid Gulledge, assistant police chief since Jan. 2, will replacie Guest, who will renjain on the department as a deputy chief. “We acknowledge the mayor's right to appoint the police chief, and he has done so,” Arnold said it a news conference. “However, the dismissal of Chief Guest in this manner seems to me both unkinjd and unprofessional. We shouljd have been able to celebrate Marvin Guest’s tenure.” Guest did not attend the neWs conference. The 62-year-old was appointed chief in August 1998 by former Mayor Frank McDonald II. Guest was reappointed to the post by Lloyd in January 2000. Last week, Lloyd asked Guest to either resign or be fired, Guest said. Guest responded that he would rather be fired than step down. Lloyd said he had lost confidence in Guest. The mayor has criticized Guest over the police department’s handling of contract negotiations with the local police union. Lloyd also has disagreed with Guest’s handling of a recent murder investigation. Arnold said he has fielded calls from Black residents who are unhappy with the move. “My phone has been ringing off the hook,” Arnold said. “People are very shocked; they’re corv» cemed and they’re dismayed.”

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