By Misti O'Quinn, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Dallas Organizer
Joppa, Dallas' best preserved remaining freedman's town, is surrounded by heavy industry and plagued with air pollution, but the nearest permanent air monitor is nine miles away from the small and isolated community.
In March, Joppa residents, led by Temeckia Derrough, Natasha Dunn, and Jabrille McDuffie, defeated a proposal to locate two additional concrete batch plants there, in part because members of clean air advocacy group Downwinders at Risk used their new portable particulate matter monitors to show the severity of current area pollution levels.
In response to the immediate need for funding to support consistent air monitoring in Joppa, Downwinders at Risk, in partnership with the Joppa Freedmen’s Town Association (JFTA) and Sierra Club, hosted the wildly successful “Let Joppa Breathe” fundraiser on May 22, which raised over $2,000.
Held at green co-working space GoodWork in downtown Dallas, the fundraiser was one of captivating performances and thought-provoking speeches led by Master of Ceremonies and Poet Rage Almighty. The night was opened up by The Sticks Mania Drumline and Keynote Speaker and Councilmember Kevin Felder (who represents District 7 and voted against the proposed concrete batch facility in March), followed by the soul-soothing Salako Music and life-long civil rights organizer Peter Johnson.
Life-long civil rights organizer Peter Johnson - who has led demonstrations alongside Martin Luther King Jr., as well as organizing around housing and hunger in Dallas - commenced the evening with a powerful speech, “Clean air is a civil right.”
The beautiful wooden centerpieces on display at the “Let Joppa Breathe” fundraiser were made by children from the Joppa community, led by Cresanda Allen of Sankofa Sciences Solutions.
As part of a long-term effort to redress decades of environmental racism in Dallas, the goal to begin permanent air quality monitoring in Joppa is underway. Organizing communities around the establishment of new pollution controls, new zoning, and new city policies being proposed by Joppa, and for Dallas as a whole, are the means to usher us all into a future with clean air.