By Richard Marcantonio and Marc Brenman

In modern society, travel is integral to both freedom and opportunity. Inequality in regard to mobility is no less important a social injustice than are segregated housing and unequal education. The history of transportation in the U.S., in fact, is deeply intertwined with the history of struggles for equality and civil rights. While that history is one of persistent inequities that have injured low-income communities of color, it is equally one of persistent struggles by those communities for justice.

In sketching this concise history, we find it helpful to frame key events within three defining phases: civil rights struggles in the age of Jim Crow, post-War “white flight” and urban renewal, and the current legacy of spatial segregation and exclusion from opportunity that so many low-income communities of color struggle against today under the banner of Environmental Justice.

From Slave Ships to ‘Separate but Equal’ Railroad Cars

Transportation injustice in the United States dates back to the involuntary transport of Africans to the American colonies. The regulation of transportation was not only central to the origins of slavery, but also to its maintenance. For instance, the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 legislated the return of escaped slaves to their owners. The Underground Railroad took aim at this system by helping to covertly transport enslaved people to their freedom in non-slave states like Canada and Mexico.  Continue reading. . .