U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was among speakers noting the environmental justice movement paved by the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during an observance ceremony in his honor.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2023 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Observance Ceremony was hosted Jan. 17 by the department’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity plus Blacks in Government Employee Resource Group, a release said.
“Dr. King’s work paved the way to our nation’s now-thriving environmental justice movement and his legacy lives through the President’s historic commitments to communities, equity, and justice,” Office of Economic Impact and Diversity Director Shalanda Baker said in the release.
Granholm and Baker were among speakers who said King’s civil rights work “laid the foundation for environmental justice,” helping the Department of Energy advance equality and inclusion, the release reported.
“We’re not ‘Dr. Kings,’ but he’s inspired us, and we have a responsibility to make it better,” Granholm said in the release.
Granholm cited President Biden’s executive order that requires 40% of federal investments go to disadvantaged communities “in the shadows of power plants” bisected by transportation decisions and “that have made employment in the dirtiest and most toxic industries the norm,” according to the release
“What responsibility we have as we reflect upon Dr. King and his impact, to be able to use these powerful tools and this powerful intention in a way where we — with our thousand acts — can really have an impact,” Granholm said in the release.
Keynote speaker U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, said disadvantage communities are affected by “the lack of access to energy sector opportunities,” the release said.
“We can't have real equality… if we don't talk about how we are not financially included and able to sit around that table when it comes to growing this [energy space]," Veasey said in the release. “What you don’t see enough is Black people getting the financing that’s needed so we can start the next electric car company — so we can start the next renewable energy company — so we can play roles… in the traditional energy space.”
