Much of transportation justice Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pioneered during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the 1950s is yet unfinished as the nation celebrates the 2013 MLK Day. However, his legacy lives on in the transportation justice movement who intergenerational leaders continue to challenge unfair and unjust discriminatory transportation policies and programs.
Transportation provides access to opportunity and serves as a key component in addressing poverty, unemployment, and equal opportunity goals while ensuring access to education, health care, and other public services. The American society is largely divided between those with cars and those without cars. Without a doubt, “transportation apartheid” is firmly and nationally entrenched in our society. We are all grateful for the young charismatic Atlanta Baptist minister Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the first successful boycott of a public transit system in the nation. Dr. King came to Montgomery, Alabama in 1954 to pastor Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. King along with Rosa Parks and their allies waged a frontal assault on Jim Crow and transportation racism–a struggle that ignited the modern civil rights movement in the United States.
A 2010 poll from Transportation for America found 82 percent of American voters say that “the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system,” including rail and buses. A 2012 Natural Resources Defense Council poll found 66 percent of Americans want more funds allocated to public transportation. The survey also found 59 percent of Americans believe the current U.S. public transportation system is “outdated, unreliable and inefficient.”
By Robert Bullard, PhD
Dean of the Jordan Leland School of Public Affairs, TSU