While Belle Glade’s motto is “Her Soil is Her Fortune,” it is really the people who contribute most to this community. Our strong ties are what make momentous change and success possible. We are ambitious, innovative, and enterprising. However, our collective achievements have been overshadowed by the corporate greed that keeps us shrouded in smoke and ash.
Sugar cane burning has become so normalized that many people cannot imagine a future without it. When city commissioners are questioned about the annual burning, or rightfully criticized for their failure to address the community’s burning concerns, they are dismissive. They water down the harm of sugar cane field burning to a minor inconvenience. The reality, however, is that sugar cane burning has a massive impact on the infrastructure, the economic future, and the overall health of the Glades community.
In 2015, a small number of Glades residents came together to confront the sugar industry head on. Since then, that once small group has blossomed into a broad grassroots campaign that stretches across four counties, includes multiple coalition partners from public health and other advocacy organizations, and allies at the federal level. In March of this year, Stop The Burn-Go Green Campaign activists aged 18 to 77, from Belle Glade, Pahokee, South Bay, Lake Harbor, and Wellington traveled to Washington D.C. to tell our story and advocate on behalf of the Glades' community.
We met with Congressman Maxwell Frost, Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, U.S. Senator Jeffrey A. Merkley, Representative Kathy Castor, and the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and had valuable exchanges in other Congressional and Senate offices, and while walking the halls of Congress.
At each of these meetings we shared details of the severe health impacts, the damage to infrastructure, and the diminished quality of life caused by the burn season.
We were met with genuine interest and concern and were asked how their support would best serve for the betterment of the community. Campaign leaders Steve Messam, Kina Phillips, and Colin Walkes shared the whole story – how community-members must face the health, quality of life, and pocketbook impacts, and not only during the 8-month burn season; the resulting economic depression across the community is year-round, as is the fear-mongering and misinformation coming from local government representatives and the industry. Glades residents have it rough but we made it clear that our fight for environmental justice is really just beginning.
It was Kathy Castor’s positive reception that reminded us that not only does our work matter, but that it is our passion and commitment that generates significant change. Representative Castor welcomed all of thirteen of us into her office, listened intently to each presenter, and allowed the presentation to go over time, warmly ignoring the sound of her buzzer. Castor was engaged, asked questions, and demonstrated true interest in a group of people that are well outside her district.
Castor and the others with whom we met finally got the opportunity to hear directly from regular folks unaffiliated with the sugar industry, instead of the nearly ever-present and notorious lobbying operations that spew the propaganda with which we Glades residents are very familiar.
We also got to explore the National Museum of African American History where exhibitions documented the historic ties between the growth of slavery and the sugar trade in the new world. It was not lost on us that pre-harvest sugar field burning is a remnant of the historic exploitation perpetuated by the sugar industry, and our trip to the museum made clear that we are some of many who have fought the long battle to get racial and environmental justice for our people.
Our win-win messaging for environmental justice in the Glades was a hit in the halls of Congress. We returned to Florida energized and ready for whatever comes next.
To preserve a community, you must build a brighter future for it. The sugar industry holds the power to enact change that could uplift the Glades community, yet they willfully choose to stand in the way of social, economic, and environmental progress. Companies like Florida Crystals and US Sugar capitalize on the educational and financial crises affecting many residents. Glades citizens demand more. Glades citizens deserve more.
We, the true fortune of this community, refuse to be suppressed, manipulated, and ignored by a multi-billion-dollar industry or weak-willed politicians with a lack of vision. We, the true fortune of the Glades, recognize that the standard has long since changed and that our value outweighs the industry's profit.
We, a group of people that are often reduced to a small collection of towns along the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee are discontent, incredibly so, and are ready to take the fight to wherever is required.
By: Al’Licia Pittman, Stop Pre-harvest Sugar Field Burning Campaign Intern