Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy in Harrisburg October 4thIn solidarity, join the campaign to register voters and oppose the Harrisburg incinerator at a civil rights rally Saturday, October 4, sponsored by the Interdenominational Ministers Conference (IMC). The Coalition Against the Incinerator urges those who seek environmental justice to turn out for the rally to show our full support of our African American brothers and sisters, as they add their voice of opposition to the Harrisburg incinerator. The rally is scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. at the First Baptist Church of Steelton, at 1850 South 19th Street, near the Harrisburg Incinerator. Even if you can't stay for the entire rally, come for part of the event. The rally will also feature hot gospel music by Jay Caldwell and the Gospel Ambassadors with special guest Carolyn White Splawn. The ministers are asking their congregations to remember Dr. King with the ultimate gift: Register and vote!
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Black Clergy Prexy Opposes Harrisburg Incinerator Restart
Harrisburg (October 3, 2003) -- The Rev. Dr. W. Braxton Cooley, president of the Interdenominational Minister's Conference of Greater Harrisburg (IMC), has added environmental justice to a plate already full with the HIA / Hershey Boycott. Cooley's church, The First Baptist Church of Steelton, at 1850 S. 19th Street, is figuratively in the Harrisburg incinerator's back yard.
Declaring a lack of voter participation as the root of HIA's economic gerrymandering and the Harrisburg incinerator hoodwink, Cooley's church will be the site for an October 4th 5PM press conference and major protest rally at 6PM.
Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy, national coordinator for the 40th Anniversary March on Washington Committee, will keynote the rally.
Hot gospel will be provided by national recording artists, Jay Caldwell & the Gospel Ambassadors and Carolyn White Splawn.
"Would there be any thought of restarting this environmentally unfriendly facility if it bordered Bellevue Park or Mountaindale,"asked Cooley?
In a move that is reflective of the changing landscape of the civil rights movement, Cooley will embrace the environmentalist movement and ask his executive committee for an emergency Environmental Justice Resolution opposing the Harrisburg incinerator project.
Within two weeks, Harrisburg City Council is expected to vote on whether to borrow $125 million to rebuild the incinerator on top of the $94 million it already owes. This is in spite of the fact that studies have shown that people of color who are poor are significantly more likely than their white counter parts to live near a waste facility and be subjected to environmental hazards.
Fauntroy, who was MLK Jr.'s man in Washington for the passage of the 1964 civil rights and 1965 voting rights acts, considers the environment a human rights issue and is expected to lend support to Cooley on the incinerator as well as the HIA / Hershey Boycott.
The IMC called for boycott measure as a result of the HIA board having structured it's diversity plan so as to nearly exclude local minorities from meaningful participation in a $222 million federally funded airport expansion project. To date two Baptist organizations representing 11million people and Martin Luther King the 3rd's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, on whose board Fauntroy serves, has endorsed the boycott.
Last modified: 3 October 2003
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