Children for a Safe
Environment
by Kory Johnson
And
What Comes Next?
Later,
we began to receive calls from children from all over
the country who wanted to organize children's
environmental groups. Since I had founded Children for a
Safe Environment, whose membership had grown to three
hundred, they wanted my help. I was interviewed often
and I was on the Geraldo Rivera Show for being a
hero.
My
teachers were proud of me, but a few said I shouldn't
protest. One told me that if I kept protesting, there
wasn't a college in the country that would take me. Some
of my other teachers whispered in my ear, "You're
doing a great job. Keep up the good work." I
wondered why, if I was doing such a great job, they
whispered.
Over the
next couple of years, we prevented two toxic dumps from
being built and helped people organize recycling groups
and neighborhood cleanups. I also spoke at Earth Day
gatherings and rallies. Unfortunately, people would buy
T-shirts and recycle a little and then forget until the
next year. It's hard to make people realize that
recycling, reusing, reducing; hazardous waste; and toxic
issues are important and, if we want to save the planet,
we have to make changes.
Teaching
little kids about picking up trash and planting a tree
is fine, but we have a long way to go. For example, when
I won an award from our mayor for getting the city to
stop using Styrofoam, I was really upset that they had
mounted it on Styroboard. When the media at the ceremony
asked me why I was so unhappy, I said, "I guess the
mayor didn't take me seriously." I didn't get any
more city awards.
During
my years of activism, one of the tough things was losing
friends. Friends whose fathers worked for polluting
companies weren't allowed to play with me anymore.
People would yell things at me and my family. My aunts,
uncles, and grandparents got harassed. My mother was
arrested several times for trying to keep dirty industry
out of poor neighborhoods and for protesting nuclear
testing.
The
first time she was arrested, I was scared, because I
thought being arrested meant you had done something bad
and wrong. But when I heard that Martin Sheen had been
arrested too, I relaxed a little, knowing he was a movie
star and definitely not a criminal. Mom made collect
calls from jail to radio stations to bring attention to
the issues. She was in the news often and lost her
leadership of a Girl Scout Brownie troop. She was also
asked to drop out of my school's PTA because she wasn't
a good role model. At first, I was embarrassed. Mom said
it would just give us more time to work for change so
other children didn't die.
But it
seemed to me that people didn't care that our water was
contaminated, that thirty-one children in our
neighborhood had died, that a brown cloud hung over us
during a weather condition called an inversion. The fact
that my mother got cancer, that my grandmother died at
fifty-three of cancer, that my sixteen-year-old sister
died, all while living in this area, none of that
mattered. What mattered was property, and reputation,
and money.
Is
It Worth It?
Sometimes,
I just want to quit. But then, the phone rings or a
letter arrives, and a kid somewhere wants to know what
they can do to help. And before you know it, I'm making
copies and mailing out information.
Once
you're in this, you're in it for life. You look at
things differently. You question authority. You get in a
few arguments with teachers and friends and family. But
you speak up for what you believe in, even if it costs
you a friend or good grades or makes you the
conversation of the town. I don't mind.
I don't
mind what it has cost me to do this work because my
sister died and I don't have her near me to laugh with,
to stay up late with, to watch scary movies with, to boy
talk with, to dance with, or to do volunteer work with.
I know she's watching over me. I know she's proud. But
I'd rather have her here with me.
I'm a
sophomore in college now. In spite of what my
sixth-grade teacher told me, a couple of summers ago, I
attended the University of California at Berkeley on a
science and math program scholarship and spent an August
working in the Raul Julia Mountain Rainforest in Puerto
Rico. Like I said, once you're in it, you're in it for
life.
This
article is excerpted with permission from
"Women of Courage - Inspiring
Stories from the Women Who Lived Them:
by Katherine Martin.
Info/Order
this book.
About
The Author
In
1998, Katy won a prestigious Goldman
Environmental Award, which is called by some
the Nobel prize of the environmental movement
and is given annually to six people around the
world. That took her to the White House, and
led to a whirlwind of interviews and speaking
invitations from around the country. She also
received the first John Denver Windstar Youth
Award for being the most environmentally
active young person in the country. In
addition to working for the environment, she
does volunteer work with sick children,
hurricane victims, and the homeless, as well
as with AIDS groups. In September of 1996, she
took part in a protest, along with Greenpeace
and other environmental justice groups, at a
railroad spur in Mobile, Arizona, to stop the
arrival of forty-five train-car loads (about
80,000 tons) of DDT-contaminated dirt from a
California Superfund site. It was Kory's first
arrest.
| Comments () >> |
 |
 |
