[MUSIC]
Mildred McClain/ Exec. Dir. Harambee House, Inc.
I had a great lesson taught to me by two wonderful women from Savannah, Georgia. A young woman
Harriet Green and an elder Mrs. Evelyn Daniels. When they came to me and asked for assistance
to address the health impacts that they were seeing in their community, as a result of
them living near and around 17 industries... and these two women came and said, "We need
your help because we are sick and tired of dying. And sick and tired of being sick! What
can you do to help us?" And I got kind of dumbfounded and I was like, "I don't know.
What can we do?" And they said you have to do something. And that was my introduction
to fighting for environmental justice. Working with this small community of less than 300
people, to find out how their community had been impacted over some 50 years by air pollution
and what could be done about it. So my "Aha!" moment was when we had our first house meeting
and I listened to residents tell their story. Then I had to think how are we going to do
this? And we decided that we were going to pull together and a group of people from many, many
different backgrounds, from community, from government, and we were going to do the
impossible. We were going to bring business to the table, industry to the table. And when
we did, the industry said, these people are too revolutionary we are not going to work
with them. But through our persistence and our diligent work with the residents of Hudson
Hill in Savannah, Georgia, we were able to create a consortium of diversified stakeholders
that put their mind to it. Put the metal to the pedal. And we have since come up with
solutions to help that small little cancer-filled community in Savannah. A lot of times we are
so passionate and so angry about what is going on and if it doesn't happen overnight we are
ready to fold and run and then continue to accept conditions as they are. But in the environmental
justice world we have learned that you have to stay until the change comes. There was
a song that we always sang, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round, turn me round, turn me
round. Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round. We are gonna keep on walking. Keep on talking,
until we win." So it may take five months. Five years. Fifteen years. Twenty years and
some of us have been on this case for thirty years. But we are seeing change. We're passing on
a legacy to the younger generation that armed with information, armed with technology and
armed in arm with each other, you will actually win and see a definite qualitative change in your
neighborhood, in your community and, indeed, in our country.