Arrested Mobility Podcast
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When majority minority neighborhoods become sacrifice zones for pollution, it can fall on community members to stand up and defend their health and wellbeing. Case in point: the nonprofit organization, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, was founded in 1988 to organize the people of West Harlem and protest the construction of the North River Sewage Treatment Plant. Today, WE ACT continues to advocate for environmental justice in Northern Manhattan, and beyond.
Healthcare is a difficult system to navigate in the United States, no matter who you are. But research shows that Black Americans face unique challenges when seeking medical care. On this episode, Charles T. Brown speaks with Rhonda Smith, Executive Director of the California Black Health Network. This is an organization that advocates for Black Californians of all backgrounds to have quality, equitable access to healthcare.
One night in 2014, Renard Monczunski was stranded at a transit center in downtown Detroit. It took three hours for a bus to come. He was angry, but the experience got him thinking about the state of public transit in the city that built the American automobile industry.
Advancing Beyond in Sports (ABIS) is an advocacy group that addresses sports-specific inequity, particularly for young athletes of color. Their work involves showing students alternate options to consider after their athletic career, and helping athletes secure Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals to build businesses and wealth. Today, Charles T. Brown and his son, Christian Brown, speak with ABIS Chief People Officer, Renae Myles Payne.
The Center for Cultural Power works with BIPOC communities to amplify authentic stories that counter harmful narratives and build public will for policy change. From supporting Walmart workers to advancing reproductive justice, they’ve seen firsthand how the right story told at the right time can reshape entire movements. In this episode, Charles T. Brown sits down with Aisha Goss, CEO of the Center for Cultural Power, to explore how narrative strategy creates lasting social change.
In 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd, Portland native Randal Wyatt had an idea. As people asked him how they could be better allies to the Black community, he saw an opportunity to address a critical but often overlooked driver of gentrification: home maintenance. Taking Ownership PDX was born, providing free repairs and renovations for Black homeowners, particularly elderly residents at risk of displacement.
In 2024, the Detroit People’s Food Co-op opened its doors in Detroit’s North End neighborhood. This full-service grocery store was birthed by the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network, or DBCFSN. It’s an organization that focuses on food justice, land access, and building Black self-determination.
There is no question that desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement improved access to healthcare for Black Americans. But today, rural hospitals increasingly face closure, and healthcare disparities continue to negatively impact Black Americans. It’s worth investigating the history of the Taborian Hospital, and other hospitals that were visited and staffed by Black patients, nurses, and doctors.
For nearly her entire life, Amy Stelly has lived in the Treme district of New Orleans. Her house is near the Claiborne Expressway, a piece of Interstate-10 that was built through the neighborhood in 1969. The Claiborne Expressway is one of many American highways to divide and deprive Black communities.
In 2017, Atlanta’s city planning department designated four large green spaces as quote “lungs,” that were vital for cooling the city. They announced plans to turn one of these lungs, the South River Forest, into an urban park. But four years later, there was a change in plans. The mayor approved a police and firefighter training facility to be built in that park. It’s called “The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center,” but to some, it has come to be known as “Cop City.”
Now, people in all communities have different ideas about what’s best for the places they live. Many people living in low-income neighborhoods do want parks, trees and bike lanes. It’s just a question of whether these communities can sustain greening without rapid, destructive gentrification and displacement.
Automated Traffic Enforcement, or ATE, is spreading across the country very fast. There are situations where ATE can reduce speeding, and theoretically it reduces contact between police officers and Black and Brown drivers for traffic stops. But, some believe that ATE can be used to perpetuate discrimination, racism, and abuses of power rather than support equity.
Fare evasion can cost transit agencies across the country tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars. It affects their ability to provide consistent bus and train service, which in turn affects riders on their way to work, school, home, or wherever they need to go. If cities are going to enforce transit fares, it must be done in an equitable way.
In a recent lecture with urban planning students at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Charles spoke to students about the delicate balance required of 15-minute cities, if they are to be adopted in the United States. 15-minute cities might work in Europe, but urban planners face unique challenges when designing American cities and neighborhoods.
In Central Wisconsin, undocumented immigrants from Latin America make up the majority of the workforce in the dairy industry. Although these undocumented folks are allowed to own and register vehicles, they can’t get driver’s licenses without legal residency. As a result, police in rural Wisconsin often racially profile drivers of color, knowing that they may not have a license to be on the road.
Many Black students live in over-policed, under-funded communities. School should be a safe space for them, a refuge from surveillance and a place to explore. But almost 70% of public high schools and middle schools have police officers on site, and Black students have contact with police more often than White students. When there’s police inside the school, and police outside the school, law enforcement is a constant presence in these students’ lives.
In a majority Black and Latino neighborhood of Hammond, Indiana, children are clambering over and under stopped train cars to get to school. These trains are halted by rail traffic at pedestrian intersections, and there are not a lot of enforceable laws to keep them moving. Blocked crossings can pose an inconvenience, or a deadly obstacle, to Americans of all kinds. But in the United States, we usually find that the people living around train tracks are Black and Brown folks who are living in a state of arrested mobility.
We’ll be covering more major themes in equity, but also diving into current events and injustices – topics like railroads disrupting Black communities, the presence of police officers in schools, food insecurity and food deserts, and much more.
Today, we’re going to focus mostly on how Black women, femme and trans folks have had their mobility arrested while navigating public transit. We’re going to think about what equitable, accessible, intersectional mobility looks like.
Stopping and searching cyclists is just one way that Black and Brown Americans have had their mobility arrested. Today, we’re breaking down the arguments for why cyclists should have the same protection from police stops as people in cars.
In some rural Louisiana communities, converted levee paths are not always equitably accessible. These communities are more than 50% Black, but researchers have found that Black and White residents report different experiences when it comes to feeling safe and welcome on the levee.
On May 15th, 2022, the Black community of St. Louis, Missouri gathered downtown to celebrate the Annie Malone May Day Parade. The day after the parade, Public Safety Director Dan Isom held a press conference. He said that groups of young people downtown had caused traffic and safety disruptions with electric scooters. The city decided to impose a 7pm curfew on electric scooters in the downtown area. Then, just a few weeks later, St. Louis banned electric scooters altogether in two downtown neighborhoods, including the area near the famous Gateway Arch monument.
Zoning is just one way that Black Americans have had their mobility arrested. Today, we’re exploring how land-use policy has historically contributed to institutional racism, segregation, and social and economic inequality.
Why is it that Black and brown folks are the ones most likely to be struck and killed? And why did fatalities go up in 2020 even when driving went down?
Today, we’re exploring why these preventable injuries and deaths happen and what can be done about it.
For many Americans, taking public transit can be a difficult daily trial. Depending on where people live, and where they’re going, buses or trains may only come once every thirty minutes to an hour. Or, in some cases, they may not come at all. Riders might have to transfer one, two, maybe three times, and even walk or roll long distances between each stop.
Our public transit systems are supposed to be designed for everyone. Instead, bus and train lines often leave behind people living in low-income communities of color.
There’s no question that helmets save lives. But some people just aren’t going to wear them, whether or not it’s illegal. Helmet laws are similar to sidewalk riding laws. They’re intended to keep people safe, but they also give police officers an excuse to stop cyclists.
Helmet laws are just one way that Black Americans, unhoused cyclists and other marginalized communities have had their mobility arrested. Today we’re exploring how enforcement of helmet laws can give way to racial and economic injustice.
Today, we’re breaking down the tension on the sidewalk between micro mobility devices, vulnerable pedestrians, and people with disabilities.
Micro mobility devices include bicycles, e-bikes, electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycles, and electric pedal assisted bicycles. Although micro mobility continues to be a work in progress, micro mobility vehicles can serve an important role in transportation equity.
Many states and cities in the US have laws that make it illegal to ride your bicycle on the sidewalk. But, are these laws keeping people safe? Or are they another way that Black Americans and other people of color have had their mobility arrested?
Today, we investigate how law enforcement uses cycling infractions to perpetuate systemic racism in under-resourced and underserved communities. We’ll talk to Patric McCoy, who was stopped by Chicago police.
When you walk around a city, there are many rules you follow – or maybe, you don’t follow them. You might not think about them too much. Rules like, walk on the sidewalk. Wait for the walk signal when crossing an intersection. Don’t cross in the middle of the block. When you break those rules in the U.S., we call it jaywalking, and it’s illegal. But most people who jaywalk don’t think about it as a crime. In fact, most Americans admit to having jaywalked.
On this podcast, we’ll take you to the streets of Philly, the sidewalks of Seattle, and the neighborhoods of Kansas City. In each place, we’ll ask critical questions at the intersection of equity, social justice, and transportation.
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