Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Civil Rights

Civil Rights Groups Challenge Maryland Gov. Hogan’s Red Line Cancellation

By Angie Schmitt | Dec 21, 2015 | 13 Comments

Back in June, newly elected Maryland Governor Larry Hogan unilaterally cancelled a transit expansion project that Baltimore had been planning for a decade, transferring the state’s promised investment to road projects in more rural parts of the state. Now a coalition of civil rights groups is challenging the decision on civil rights grounds, saying it amounts […]

Police Profiling Is a Safe Streets Issue

By Keith Benjamin | Mar 16, 2015 | 5 Comments

Cross-posted from the Safe Routes to School National Partnership “Are they going to kill me?” That’s the question a young black boy asked me one afternoon when I accidentally bumped into him and his grandmother on West Florissant Avenue, in Ferguson, after Michael Brown’s death. He was pointing at two officers watching peaceful protestors. I […]

How Does the Threat of Police Violence Affect How You Use the Street?

By Ben Fried | Dec 4, 2014 | No Comments

When the news came out yesterday that a Staten Island grand jury had failed to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner with an illegal chokehold, like many people I found the outcome difficult to comprehend. With clear video evidence showing that Pantaleo broke NYPD protocol and a coroner’s report certifying that Garner’s death […]

Documentary to Explore Racial Discrimination in Transportation Planning

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 29, 2014 | 4 Comments

Beavercreek, Ohio, nabbed its own infamous place in civil rights history last year, when the Federal Highway Administration ruled that the suburb had violated anti-discrimination laws by blocking bus service from nearby Dayton. The Beavercreek case marked the first time civil rights activists had successfully filed this type of administrative complaint with the FHWA against […]

U.S. DOT Rules Ohio Burb Can’t Keep Out Transit, Local Officials Balk

By Angie Schmitt | Aug 8, 2013 | 44 Comments

It’s always sad when attacks on transit are poorly disguised attempts at keeping “those folks” out. Such is the case with this story of transit obstructionism in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio. Beavercreek, an affluent suburb by Dayton standards, set out to establish special rules for the local transit authority, otherwise it wouldn’t allow three […]

Georgia Prosecutor Continues Case Against Raquel Nelson

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 11, 2012 | 20 Comments

The impaired hit-and-run driver who struck and killed her son on a metro Atlanta road in 2010 has been released from prison by now, but Raquel Nelson is still being prosecuted for her purported role in the tragedy. The single mother of three was injured trying to prevent the collision that killed four-year-old A.J. Newman. […]

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