On a cold MLK Day in East St. Louis, volunteers raised awareness of environmental racism
Despite the bitter cold, local activists, students and residents gathered at the corner of Bond Avenue and South 11th Street in East St. Louis midday Monday, fanning out across the nearby blocks with large trash bags to pick up debris strewn about the area.
From ordinary trash like plastic bottles and aluminum cans to bigger items like a Wi-Fi router and modem, the group of about 30 people cleared three fields and filled more than 50 bags as the wind chill factor hovered below zero degrees.
They were participating in Empire 13’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service cleanup to address the ongoing issue of illegal dumping in the city and shed light on the environmental injustices and environmental racism predominantly Black communities across the country face.
“Injustice still continues no matter what. So even in those times and days where it’s cold … it’s important to show the perseverance and the courage and determination that no matter what the temperature may be or no matter what the obstacle may be, that we still go forward and we fight for justice,” said JD Dixon, a metro-east environmental activist and community organizer who created Empire 13.
Illegal dumping, he explained, is the buildup of trash and other debris that is dumped illegally in cities by people from outside the community, like construction workers and landlords who are avoiding disposal fees.
It’s an issue prevalent on both sides of the Mississippi, especially in East St. Louis and north St. Louis. According to the city of St. Louis, residents of majority-Black neighborhoods report illegal dumping four times more often than majority-white neighborhoods.
Dixon’s Empire 13 organized the MLK Day cleanup alongside three colleagues and their respective organizations who have joined forces to form the Clean City Coalition: Koran Payton’s Regular Everyday Citizens, Zach Chike from the City of Joy Fellowship and Thomas Brown’s BuildN the Foundation.
The city of East St. Louis, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were also partners for the event. About 15 students from SIUE joined, arriving on a bus that then served as a warming space throughout the cleanup.
Payton of Regular Everyday Citizens estimates the groups that form the Clean City Coalition have done upwards of 200 cleanups, which includes large efforts involving volunteers and smaller ones with some of their team.
“We’ve put a lot of man hours into the city at this point,” he said.
When some known dumping areas are cleaned up, Payton said, it only takes about two weeks for the trash to accumulate again.
“It becomes very, very disheartening when stuff like that happens,” he said. Nonetheless, the groups keep going out and continue to clean up the city.
“It’s about bringing awareness to it,” Payton said.
The groups want to raise awareness not only of the issue itself, but also the need for policies and resources at the local, state and federal level to adequately address environmental injustices like illegal dumping.
“This is a demonstration … to show those who have been elected into offices that they need to pass the policies to address these issues” that have been plaguing under-resourced communities for decades, Dixon said.
The cleanup is also meant to highlight the power of community organizing, he added.
“We the people can come together and hold these types of cleanups … and organize and strategize to address the issues of illegal dumping and environmental racism, but also organize to elect true community leaders,” Dixon said.
When you show people you care and hold people accountable, Payton said, “you realize that as a community, everybody can come together and create that spark of hope to make a change.”
