T.C. Calvert Interview, Part 2 of 2

INTERVIEWEE: T.C. Calvert (TCC) INTERVIEWERS: David Todd (DT) and David Weisman (DW) DATE: April 16, 2002 LOCATION: San Antonio, Texas TRANSCRIBERS: Lacy Goldsmith and Robin Johnson REEL: 2195

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DT: Mr. Calvert, you've told us about how you've been active on the state, national and international level in-in trying to fight environmental injustice.

TCC: Yes Sir. DT: And I was wondering what-what sort of patterns you see -- what kind of links you see among communities that are affected by thesethese facilities that are located in them?

TCC: Well the pattern is very simple. Is that the powers that be in most of the polluting companies in America always seem to locate in communities of color. Why is that? Well, it's because they know that they dont have the political strength. They look at the voting pattern of these neighborhoods.

They know that these people are in communities where the education level may not be as high as it is in other census tracts within these neighborhoods. They also look at the fact of what the political leadership is in those neighborhoods, whether they can buy the political leadership off.

And it's sad to say, but some political leaders would say, "Well you know, they didn't buy me off." But in a lot of these communities, the political leadership sides with the polluters. So eventually they are co-opted to see and push the position of the polluters.

What they have found out in San Antonio is that there's a strong activist community here. That there is a very progressive environmental movement here and that this environmental movement here has coalesced. We've seen the rule; Anglo members of the Martinez Environmental Group who fought the BFI facility coalesced with the African American, Hispanic group such as the Neighborhood First Alliance.

Neighborhood First Alliance, which is the primarily African American women leadership group, coalesced with people who live in East Kelly, primarily Hispanic group join together. We have worked very closely with the environmental Esperanza Environmental Justice Project.

So these groups have commonalties because of the health concerns of the residents of the area, as well as the breathing problems that people have, the cancer problems that people have. Isn't it a coincidence that the-the Health Department or the city government never sees that you know that these particular communities have cancer clusters?

Why is that? Why is there a cancer cluster in Meadowview North or Willow Woods area? When only maybe two percent or one percent of the people in those communities are smokers. Because when we do the health surveys, we asked them: How many people in your house smoke? How many packs of cigarettes do they smoke?

Well nobody in our house smokes. Was there a history of cancer in your community or in your household? No. But when we moved here and all this pollution came in, everybody started getting sick. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Why is it so hard?

You have to look at the cumulative effect: it's not always just one company. It takes a number of companies to destroy a neighborhood and to make it sick. And that's what we have within East Bexar County.

Why can't they move high tech business into these communities? Of course they can. You have major freeways there. You have an existing and available labor force there. You have a good educational level there of people, one of the best transportation systems close to major interstates.

You have a rail system there. You have a Community College in the neighborhood. You're close to a big military installation. That doesn't mean you have to always put toxic pollutions within that community.

So, it's because it's institutional racism. No one wants to say it is, but it is, and I'm here to say it. And I don't care whose toes I step on. But it's purely environmental racism, because they have people that they control.

They have large sums of money. They have a big work force and they can influence political power on the federal level, on the state level, and on the local level. And these communities can't do that. So someone has to speak up for them.

It's like a David and Goliath situation. So the pattern, Mr. Todd, is not only in the United States, but it crosses over to other borders and other international countries like Mexico. They have all kinds of environmental problems along the Rio Grande and along the Mexican border, as we've seen.

You think the same problem they had over in Dallas, in West Dallas, that they don't have that same problem over in Tijuana? What's the difference between the people in West Dallas and the poor people over in Tijuana, Mexico? They're human beings too.

So, yes, that's environmental racism, when you can do that to a people. And it's wrong. The Bible talks about being good stewards of the earth. Are they being good stewards of the earth? No they're not. Are they being good corporate citizens? No, they're not. Not when they locate toxins and pollutions right in the backyard of innocent people who have no defense and no one to stand for them.

So, we have to step up to the plate and we have to be the soldiers on the battlefield for these individuals.

DT: I understand that you're trying to give voice to some of these individuals by working on a voter reform so they can essentially elect officials to help them. Can you tell about that experience?

TCC: Well, let me just tell you that's one of my favorite issues is the voter reform. I take voting very seriously because I've had a number of friends and people that I know that have died and who have brutalized to have the right to vote.

This country has suffered and specifically African Americans have paid their dues. People have been tarred and feathered, hung, shot, beaten to have the right to vote. And so basically, what we do is we conduct voter registration drives within our communities to get people to vote, to give them the power.

We let them know that a voter registration card is just like having a Mac 10 [submachine gun]. A voter registration card is just like having a pistol: it's in your hands, the power to elect elected officials.

And so we try to tell people to exercise that right. We're not out here blowing up buildings. We're not out here shooting people up. We're not out here doing vandalism. We're telling people that the way they can participate in the political process is by registering to vote and getting to the polls to vote.

So the Neighborhood First Alliance, yes we've become very active in the political process by using the monies we've raised to register people to vote, to take people to the polls to vote, to have people going door to door.

And we do it with a passion and we try to have fun with it. And we try to educate people on the process of getting involved and we've done it with little or no money at all and we've been very effective within our community in doing that.

We still have a long way to go but we've asked- I've testified before the congressional hearings that were taken place here in San Antonio on some of the things we want to see done. We want to see-see some of the voting machines that they have now that they used in Florida, we want to see them outlawed and I think that Congress just a few days ago passed the legislation to outlaw some of this antiquated equipment.

DT: What sort of message and lesson do you get out of the fall 2000 elections in terms of voter registration?

TCC: One of the lessons we've learned is that every person's vote is crucial. Every person's one vote is so important to the political process. You know, it upsets me when people say, "My vote doesn't count." Well your vote does count and your vote counts when you participate in the political process.

And I think it was a wake up call to the citizens of America that voting is very important because of the closeness of the race. It shows that every vote is very crucial in all these elections that take place.

So, I learned that the in the United States, we still have some serious problems with the voting process. And I learned in the United States that there still some people in high places that want to disenfranchise certain populations from participating in the political process.

And the other thing is that voting should be made easy. Well someone would say, or some right-winger looking at this program would say, "Well how easy do we need to make it?" We need to make it very easy, right-winger. We need to make it so easy that people can go on Election Day and participate in the process.

If people can stand in the South Africa for miles and miles around and pass out in sweltering heat and wait for eight hours to vote, that sends a strong message to the people of the United States that we take voting for granted. And in this great country that we live in, voting should be made very easy to the populace for people to vote in this country.

That doesn't mean there has to be fraud. There just needs to be checks and balances and accountability. But we shouldn't be closing down voting locations in minority neighborhoods. When you do that you disenfranchise the people, and this county has been very good in doing that.

When you lump a bunch of precincts together and you don't tell the people in the precincts that they've been lumped in with another precinct. And then they go to the school that they normally vote on at Election Day, and that voting place is not open, you know what that voters going to do?

He's going to turn around and go home and not participate in the political process. And that just happened in a number of recent elections here in the state of Texas and it shouldn't be that way. We need to pay the election judges more money. You know we're paying them minimum wage. Let's pay them a decent salary or decent amount of money for them to go and work the elections.

So those are some of the problems that we still have to contend with. There's others but this show's not long enough for us to go into all that. But those are some of the basic things we need to do: update the machinery and stuff.

DT: When you look into the future, what do you think the big challenges are, especially in the environmental field?

TCC: Well I'm glad you asked that question. The big challenges we have is at the federal level, the state level, and local levels in making sure that we protect the Clean Air Act, that we protect the Water Act.

I think we have some serious challenges there, specifically in the area of the-some with Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission and a number of these agencies, the San Antonio Water System, whatever Water System - that's supposed to be protecting the water within the communities across this state or across this country.

We have some serious challenges there and we need to make sure that there's checks and balances, and that these bureaucracies are held accountable in making sure that our water is protected and clean.

Right now, with the number of growth that's taking place over the water recharge zones across our state and the pollution of a number of our lakes and waterways by major industries, we have agencies that are supposed to be, Mr. Todd, protecting the health and well being of our citizens but they're turning the other way and theyre not doing their job.

So those are some of the challenges we have. The other challenges we have is we have to change the mindset of some of our elected officials. They have been so blinded by PAC [political action committee] money and by contributions by the big oil companies, by the BFI's of the world, that it's just disgraceful.

It's disgraceful. And it's almost criminal in the way these companies control the political process. I would like to see more of a grass roots swell of people having impact on legislation than a handful, and I repeat, a handful of reactionary right-wing, greedy people controlling the political process in our country.

And that's the challenge that we as a nation have that a few people are controlling our air, our water and keeping our planet cleaned and our communities safe from toxics and pollution.

DT: I don't have any other questions. Do you have anything you would like to add?

TCC: No, he has a question.

DW: (inaudible)

TCC: Right.

DW: (inaudible)

TCC: Well there are programs like that and what is happened is that we, as I stated earlier, we always organize around self-interest of the people.

DW: (inaudible) TCC: Yeah. What happens is-is that there are programs that are set for people to go out and and-and enjoy the rain forest, enjoy our beaches. And we have plenty of those programs in place. But what happens is we have to address the self-interest of those communities of color who have struggled. They dont' have the resources that Save the Whales have.

They don't have the resources that the Sierra Club has and they don't have the resources that Greenpeace has. So basically what we're simply saying is that these individuals are basically fighting daily just to make ends meet, just to have a safe community.

So, we have to continue to organize around what is important to them. And a lot of times they don't live by pristine lakes and a lot of times they don't live by a rain forest or a place where they can go and watch the birds and the habitats. A lot of the people who live in our community never even been out of the City of San Antonio, never even been thirty miles outside the City of San Antonio.

What we would like to see happen is a lot of these young people- and what has to happen is these groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club and all these groups, the conservation groups, have to maybe formulate partnerships with inner city kids and expose them to this other side of the environmental world.

Some groups are doing it and some groups are not and a lot of times what happens is they have their self-interest which may not be the self-interest of young people who live in inner cities, who have asthma problems. And that's the bottom line and that's just the way it is.

DW: (inaudible)

TCC: Well, well one of the things that-that, you have to be thirsty for justice. As a young boy, I experienced a lot of racial discrimination. I experienced it when I was eight years old. When my stepfather took me- he was a truck driver and he took me for a ride-he used to do runs from San Antonio to Houston delivering steel.

We stopped at a truck stop in Sealy, Texas and I accidentally went in the front door of this restaurant and when I went in to order a hamburger and a Coke, the waiter and waitress told me, "Little nigger boy, you can't come in here and sit here. You have to go in the back in the kitchen where all the black nigger truck drivers are."

I was very hurt. I still remember that today because it was such an ugly thing that happened. And I was crushed and I went into the kitchen where the black truck drivers were. They were all sitting around a table about the size of this table we're at now and they said, "Oh, we forgot to tell you we all eat back here."

So, it's those kind of things that I remember that give me the thirst. You have to be thirsty for justice, so you have to have a passion for this business and I feel that God has chosen me to be an activist.

Yeah, I get down in the dumps. Yeah, I do get burned out. But guess what? When you have the fire in the belly and you have the passion to bring justice to people, you never get tired of this business.

So, my only relaxation is sometimes when I can get to read a good book, which I miss sometimes, or I get to go see a good movie or I get to appreciate some gospel or jazz music, or even drive out into the countryside and get away from all the toxics and pollution.

Of course, I would love to go to a beach. But in this business there's always an issue. I've got to leave here now and get ready to go do a workshop in Denver, Colorado with a group up in Denver, Colorado. I just came from a meeting today with about fourteen neighborhood activists who all had different issues that they want me to help them on.

Fourteen different issues! How do you do it? You just have to have the faith and the will and the determination to see justice. So it's a thirst for justice and it's a passion for the work you do.

Everybody can't be a community organizer, everybody can't be a community activist. This type of work is not for everybody so that's where the thirst for justice comes in.

DT: I understand your son is an activist.

TCC: Yes, he is.

DT: I'm wondering, how can you recruit new people to the movement like your son? How do you get them interested and concerned about the things that you've been involved with?

TCC: Well they're there. It's just a matter of the opportunities being presented to them. San Antonio, Texas is a hotbed for community activism and I am so happy that my son is a part of this process. He's 21 years old. He graduates from Tufts University with a degree in International Affairs.

He just got back from Sudan, Africa where he was on a mission with this international antislavery group of people from Zurich, Switzerland and from London and from Australia and Boston who went to Sudan. As you know, Sudan is a country that is at civil war.

It was a very dangerous mission. Here's a 21 year old young man, who I'm very proud of, who is over in Sudan on a mission freeing slaves and I'm pleased to say that I got a call from him through satellite phone that they were able to free almost 300 slaves over in Africa. They had to pay $35 a piece for the freedom of these individuals.

Here we are in the year 2002 and there's still slavery in the world. It just boggles the mind and I'm so happy that part of what I know has rubbed off on my son.

When he was two years old, I used to push him in a basket up Martin Luther King Boulevard when we were fighting to get a state holiday, a national holiday for Martin Luther King. He tells me he remembers that. I say, "You don't remember that." He says "Yeah, I do remember that."

So I'm very proud of him and I'm glad he's back on American soil safe and sound. But we just have to make sure young people-each one has to teach one and as a veteran organizer, my job now is teach young people what I know.

And I want to be able to pass what I know down to other young people who want to be organizers and activists like myself. I don't mind sharing what I know. There are a number of veteran organizers who don't like to share, who want to keep all the information.

Well T.C. Calvert is not one of those individuals. So I share what I know with a number of people. I still share what I know with people who are older then me but I'm a different kind of organizer. I'm kind more of 101, nuts and bolts, down and dirty, kind of charismatic-type organizer.

But one of the things that I try to do-and this is one the reasons that I'm still at this business- is that all the actions that I do, we make them fun. So, community organizing, even though it's serious, you have to make it fun as well and you have to have a sense of humor in this business. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. You have to be able to laugh at your mistakes. You can't be afraid to make mistakes.

And one of the things people get discouraged about: you're not always going to win, brother Todd. You got to be able to get deep down and get hurt and you got to be able to sometimes to take a beating. But you got to be able to dust yourself off and come on back up for the fight.

And that's what the opposition don't like about us. They say, "Oh well, we got the money. We got the politicians in our pocket." But the one thing that they don't have is people power and we have the people power, and we keep coming and we keep coming. It's the hits just keep on coming.

So, my job is to train other people to do what I know and for me to plant the seed for younger people to learn this business and for them to learn it to someone else. When I teach what I know to other young people. I tell them, "Now you make sure you teach it to someone else." So that's very important in this business: each one teach one.

DT: Is there anything else you'd like to say?

TCC: I just want to say that you guys have done a good job in being here and I'm glad that you're putting this into some history and I hope that individuals will be able to use it to help organize their communities. And I hope that I have been some help to you.

DT: You have. Thank you very much.

TCC: Thank you.

DW: And I just need about 20 seconds of silence (inaudible).

TCC: Okay.

End of reel 2195 End of interview with T.C. Calvert