Thanks to The St. Louis American for its recent coverage of Martin Luther King Jr. Day activities here. As your readers know, Rev. King came to national attention for the campaign for equal access to public buses in Montgomery, Alabama launched in December 1955. A key leader in that campaign was Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white man.
Thanks to campaigns like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, public transit buses are no longer segregated. Today’s challenges are different. Diesel transit buses emit dangerous particulate air pollution that sickens people along the route. Bus service is infrequent, making it difficult for transit-dependent riders to get to work, to school, to the grocery store and the doctor. Carbon pollution from tailpipe emissions causes climate change, which means more deadly heat waves in St. Louis.
That is why the Sierra Club supports national Transit Equity Day, which took place on Tuesday, February 4. This date was chosen since it is Rosa Parks’ birthday, and so recognizes the long history of civil rights engagement on public transit issues.
The Sierra Club is committed to work with our partners to make progress on the public transit issues of today. A recent victory was Metro’s decision to buy 14 more electric buses, which will mean that all the buses on the busy Grand route will be electric by 2021. Let’s do our part to continue Rosa Parks’ legacy.
John Hickey
Missouri Sierra Club
St. Louis
