By Marshall Adesman, Volunteer Writer
More than 49 million Americans like to fish. Freshwater, saltwater, fly fishing, catch-and-release or catch-and-keep – doesn't matter, we bait our hooks, toss 'em out, and hope for the best.
Rita Harris remembers that her late mother just loved to fish. "But she didn't really know all that much about water pollution. Probably a good thing that she didn't catch many fish, who knows what she might have brought into the house!"
A deep and abiding love and respect for the environment has driven Harris for more than two decades, and now it has taken her to a whole new level – this past spring, she was elected to the Sierra Club's national Board of Directors.
She became active with the Club in a rather unusual way. "They hired me in 1999 as an Environmental Justice Organizer," she said in a recent telephone interview. She served in that capacity, as well as a great many others, for eighteen years, until she retired in 2017. "At my retirement party," she remembered, "I mentioned that I would love to serve on the National Board." Someone must have tattled, because more than a year ago she was called and asked if she still had "Board fever." She did, and went through a background check, three interviews, and town hall video campaigns before becoming one of five new members elected this past April.
In her Sierra Club career, all spent with the Chickasaw Group in Western Tennessee, she has worked on a great many campaigns. The biggest one took place around fifteen years ago. "A company wanted to build a nuclear waste incinerator on President's Island," she said (despite its name, it is actually a peninsula on the Mississippi River in southwest Memphis.) It is only a mile from an area that is predominantly African-American. Harris organized the community and, over a ten-month period, they conducted vigorous rallies and spoke out forcefully against the incinerator. It was never built.
In addition to water issues, air pollution gets her motivated. There was, for instance, an illegal dumping problem in Memphis – people were bringing their trash into other neighborhoods. Harris once again got people mobilized, and they raised a stink (pun intended), which forced City officials to keep a sharper eye out in certain "violated" areas in town.
She has also been active in teaching how discrimination fits into the ecological scheme, leading anti-racism workshops all over the country. She served on the Sierra Club's original Diversity Council, which has now morphed into the Office of Equity and Inclusion, and she is eager to help turn this into a success. "We need to be able to work with all people, in all neighborhoods, to help fight global warming," she says with great emphasis.
Fight – that's a good word. In Rita Harris, the Sierra Club has a real fighter on its Board of Directors. Polluters, climate change deniers, and any others who stand in the way of the "greening" of Mother Earth, will soon learn what Western Tennessee learned over and over — if you try to oppose Rita, it won't end well for you. Contact Marshall at msadesman@gmail.com