Transit, mobility justice, and the fight for civil rights

Transit was one of the big focuses of the Civil Rights movement. Thanks to Civil rights heroes & heroines like Dr. King, Claudette Colvin, Jo Ann Robinson, and Rosa Parks and the movements which supported them, we are now able to share the public transit system across race. However, today, we are still in the fight for racial and social equity in our society and our communities.

Being able to give Pittsburgh youth the platform to create change in their schools, and communities is not only an outcome of this fight, but one of the main reasons to keep it up.

During this year’s Martin Luther King Day the BikePGH education team was given the opportunity to lead a breakout session at the annual MLK Dreaming Radically Youth Conference hosted by A+ Schools.

Youth speak on what is needed in our communities

The focus during this session was to give the students a chance to talk about what it was like to commute to school or work. The goal was to address the needs in their respective neighborhoods and to draw out the infrastructure needed to have a well functioning community. This session taught the students how to focus on the needs in their community and sketch out the changes needed to have a truly inclusive and overall livable community.

Those skills were then applied to a working lunch where students were asked to plan out a project proposal that will help change the way their communities and schools work for the better. If selected, the students project ideas will be funded and implemented in the setting of their choice.

We were honored to be apart of this years Dreaming Radically Youth Conference, and are looking forward to the next A+ Schools partnership.

Below is an image of what the students found to be necessary infrastructure for their communities.