Photos courtesy of Lawrence Dortch
LISTEN TO THE REPORT FROM TUESDAY’S ACTION
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“Third world countries require you to hire people from their countries when [you] do work [there]. Other states and cities do it, and D.C. should do it,” said community activist and civil rights attorney Donald Temple on Tuesday as he marched with more than 50 others to the 11th Street Bridge, which traverses the Anacostia River, connecting downtown D.C. to Anacostia, where unemployment stands at 30 percent.
The $300 million reconstruction of the 11th Street Bridge is not benefitting Anacostia residents, according to demonstrators. Michael E. Ruane of the Washington Post reported, “The project – the District’s largest-ever transportation construction endeavor – will replace the two existing bridges with three new spans. Designed to ease traffic flow across the river, it began in December 2009 and is scheduled to be finished in 2013. Despite its size, duration and location beside some of Washington’s neediest communities, the protesters contended that few people from those neighborhoods have landed jobs on the project.”
Addressing protesters in Anacostia Park, overlooking the 11th Street Bridge, Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry said, “I believe that in the richest country in [the world], richest city in America, everybody who wants to work ought to have a job.” On the subject of the First Source Agreement – which requires employers receiving $100,000 or more of District funding to make at least 51 percent of their new hires District residents – Barry said, “The First Source is a joke. There’s no enforcement to it.”
Photos courtesy of Lawrence Dortch
Donte Lee also addressed protesters, who were overwhelmingly African American. Lee introduced himself as “a certified minority contractor that hires [a] majority of people that look like you.” He said, “If we get any of this work [on the 11th street bridge], we’re looking for y’all to come and make this happen. Of course you know why we’re here. We can’t get any of the work. So I’m just here in support.”
Before the rally, Temple said, “You have people protesting because they’re being excluded from the job market at a time when there are major construction contracts using federal money and D.C. money and building projects right here in the community where they live. The jobs are going to people from West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia.
“They tell these people that they’re not qualified. They tell these people that they have to come for a construction job and present a written resume on a particular day between certain hours. A resume to dig a ditch. A resume for an electrician. A resume for a carpenter. It’s insane. The District residents whose tax money is being used to finance projects are being excluded from participating in the economic benefits… There’s a double standard.”
Temple said, “East of the Anacostia is kind of anecdotal to, like the railroad tracks. In most of our cities predominantly black populations live across the tracks. In D.C. the predominant poor black population lives east of the river traditionally. But now there is development east of the river consistent with the gentrification that we see in the District of Columbia, and businesses, construction, [and] change is coming east of the river.
“So there are economic opportunities and there are jobs. What we’re insisting on is that in that change that we feed the existing community… instead of excluding them, and then ultimately, when the economy shifts, forcing them out of the very communities where they live. That’s preposterous. That’s what we resent. It’s a modern day form of colonialism so to speak. This is insane. So the people are only asking for respect. Economic respect. Economic justice. Economic dignity.”