“Public Transit is a Right, Not a Commodity”: An Interview with Jovanka Beckles
The longtime Richmond, California-based activist discusses her campaign for AC Transit Board of Directors, the urgency of implementing a Green New Deal at the local level, and public transit as an avenue for achieving environmental and racial equity.
Image credit: Molly Robinson
Jovanka Beckles is one of the most prominent ecosocialist local public officials in the United States. She first gained notoriety as an activist and then city council member in Richmond, CA. Richmond, a majority Black and Brown city of 110,000 and home to a Chevron petroleum refinery, is one of the oldest frontline environmental justice (EJ) communities in the United States. During her city council tenure, Beckles and the Richmond Progressive Alliance were responsible for many victories such as increased taxes on Chevron, a $15 per hour minimum wage, and measures to curb local pollution.
Beckles’ candidacy for California State Assembly in 2018 made national headlines as emblematic of a larger factional battle within the Democratic Party; Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama weighed in on opposing sides of the campaign. Two years later, Beckles is back, running a labor and DSA-backed campaign for a seat on the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit Board of Directors. The Board oversees a transit system used by more than three million people in the California Bay Area, including the cities of Oakland, Richmond, and Berkeley.
The Trouble’s Molly Robinson sat down with Beckles in early September to discuss the values strategy behind her campaign.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Molly Robinson: This is an auspicious--or perhaps inauspicious--moment to be having this interview, on a day when we woke up with no sun in the Bay Area. Today we're talking about your activism and your campaign for Alameda-Contra Costa (AC) Transit Board of Directors. Your range of labor and environmental activism and your political expertise uniquely situate you as a candidate. How did you come to understand public transit as a site of intervention for a Green New Deal strategy?
Jovanka Beckles: We talk about a Green New Deal hoping that the federal government will do something to help us all, but this is an opportunity for us to do something locally and to see results. When we speak about the Green New Deal, in its job creation and plan to reduce greenhouse gases and for us to build an emissions-free transportation system, public transit presents the perfect opportunity. Right now, AC Transit plans to transition to a more sustainable, emissions-free bus fleet by 2040. My candidacy is an opportunity for us to make that transition more quickly, and to work with environmental justice organizations like 350.org, Sierra Club, and Communities for a Better Environment to figure out how to bring the Green New Deal on a local level.
As you said—what is it, three o'clock? It’s still dark outside, dark orange and eerie-looking. There’s no time to play games. We start by offering a fare-free system--and I’m the only candidate supporting it--because a fare-free system gets people out of their cars.
MR: Thanks for bringing up car culture. Two persistent forces that frequently thwart the expansion of green public transit in the United States are 1) the predominance of car culture and 2) influential mass organizations like the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity that have successfully defeated transit expansion measures in cities like Nashville. How can the left confront these forces?
JB: You incentivize public transit by offering a fare-fee system—not just for people who are low-income but for everyone. We can make that happen. We do it when we come together like we're doing now: as organizations, as labor leaders. The East Bay DSA and so many other organizations are working to defeat those forces. We have grassroots candidates like myself, who are environmentalists and social activists, to take them on, and we can do it.
We've done it before. We've taken on big money in Richmond, in the Bay Area. We did it with Chevron. But it's not easy because they have a lot of money and can buy a lot of airtime, on the radio and in TV commercials. But we—and by we, I mean activists--have done it before we'll do it again. That’s what we're doing in this race: going up against multi-billion dollar corporations like Lyft and Uber, who want privatized transportation. Car culture has really taken us over a cliff. It's not a sustainable model to have the freeways congested, and people spending hours and hours on the road when they could be spending more time at home with their families.
MR: Over the past few years, DSA and similar organizations have focused their efforts on electing socialists to local office. Critics of this strategy argue that it does little to build power, both at a community level and towards a broader national project. Presumably you disagree. So how does holding local office contribute to our broader goals?
JB: Look at what can happen at the local level that didn't happen at the federal level, nor at the state level. I’ll walk you through some of that. Right here in Richmond, we were able to raise the minimum wage to $15. The state hadn't done it yet. Feds hadn't done it yet. But when small communities, cities and organizations fight at the local level, we influence the state and the feds. After our ordinance, the state started working towards passing a $15 an hour minimum wage.
In Richmond we also passed “Ban the Box,” a fairness in hiring ordinance, to give formerly incarcerated people an opportunity to get employment. Soon after, the movement spread to other cities. The next thing you know, it’s part of state law.
There are so many other things that we've done. Rent control—Richmond was the first city to pass a rent control ordinance in 30 years. Again, it didn't start at the federal level or at the state level; it started at the municipal level. That’s why these races are so important: expanding a movement at the local level creates a broader movement throughout the country. Once politicians see that an issue is faced by more than one or two municipalities or agencies, then they finally start to take notice. That’s how we build. That's our movement. And that's how we make a difference.
MR: I'm glad you brought up rent control, because that was one of your priorities when you ran for State Assembly in 2018. How do you see public transit as intersecting with other public policy issues that you've spent your career focusing on?
JB: Well, I'm thinking about Black Lives Matter. 80 percent of the bus drivers are Black, so now we're talking about a racial justice issue. 70 percent of riders are people of color, Black and Brown people. We're talking about the LGBT community, as well as those who are disabled and seniors and students.
I have the opportunity to bring all of those issues to the forefront in this campaign. I see it as a racial justice issue when the majority of the drivers are Black, and when they have to fight for fair wages, or when they have to fight for personal protective equipment. Riders have to endure these issues, too, and they're not being addressed by the Board of Directors. The Board is currently considering about a 30 percent cut to the line. Who will be most affected when these cuts happen? Black and Brown people.
So I see this campaign as an opportunity for us to make the changes that we're fighting for on the streets. Imagine not having to worry about people evading their fares because they just didn't have any money--when it was a choice between food and riding that day. With a fare-free system, no one calls the police because someone tried to evade the fare.
MR: In 2018, you ran for State Assembly against Buffy Wicks. The race was seen in part as a proxy battle between different factions of the Democratic Party. What lessons did you learn personally from that campaign, and what did you learn about the Democratic Party, its future, and how the socialist movement should engage with it?
JB: That race showed how the Democratic Party operates. When the Party sees its power structure threatened by democratic socialists, by activists, they pull out all the stops. One of those stops is bringing someone in with no roots other than the fact that they were born here. If you haven't lived here for many years and move back a year before the race starts, that's not rooted. It showed, too, why we have to be more of a presence in the Party. I understand why so many people say we need a working-class party because I see, as so many others do, that the Democratic Party is really the party of the elite, of the 1 percent. So many (not all) Party leaders bow down to their donors.
That was really evident in the 2018 race, but what was also evident was the systemic racism in the Party. Kimberly Ellis fought, and she deserved that seat to become chair of the California Democratic Party. She ran a really great campaign the first time, the second time. Here's a Black woman who's worked her butt off. The next thing you know, the party brings in a white man who’s got the support of so many elected officials indebted to the establishment, even in the Bay Area. It was so unfortunate.
I think that we have to do a better job as activists, as democratic socialists, to help voters understand what's at stake. A candidate might answer a question about the fossil fuel industry but skate around the answer. For example, if you asked me, "Do you think we should stop fracking?" Yes! That’s not an answer that requires many words. I was accused in the 2018 race of not using enough words. The reason I wasn’t long-winded is because some questions are really simple and some answers are really basic: It’s either yes or no, and doesn’t require a lengthy explanation. When you get long-winded answers, you know that means a candidate plans to do nothing. Wicks and I differed big time in our values around charter schools and around the fossil fuel industry.
And that brings the issue of systemic racism full-circle. I remember driving around and seeing people with a Black Lives Matter sign and a Buffy Wicks sign in their yard, and I had to laugh. I wanted to stop and take a picture to capture the irony. Your values are not about Black lives if you believe that a white woman with no experience will make a better representative than a Black woman with experience who has lived in this region for over 30 years, and has a track record of providing the policies that you say you believe in. It was too much. It’s still too much for me sometimes.
MR: One of your great advantages is that you have a very clear idea of the people you are helping, because you know them. This leads to my next question. A core concept of the Green New Deal is a just transition for workers. In 2018, as you mentioned, the California Air Resources Board ordered all bus fleets to be zero-emissions by 2040. Introducing new technology will require new skill sets and training for, say, bus mechanics. With this example in mind, what might a just transition look like for transit workers who are wondering how a Green New Deal program will impact their jobs?
JB: The just transition position of the Green New Deal is the piece that I really want people to listen to and understand. As a union member and working-class person, I don't want anyone to lose their jobs, particularly when we're talking about transitioning to green jobs to heal our planet. Training will be needed to help folks apply the knowledge that they've learned in making a fleet that runs on fossil fuel and gas to learning how to build a green fleet. The electricians, the clerical staff, all of those AC Transit workers...I don't foresee and I don't plan on making job cuts within the AC Transit payroll. All of these jobs can be transitioned, even at the Chevron refinery. There's a lot of work that's involved in greening our planet, which means new job opportunities.
MR: You mentioned earlier that AC Transit risks budgetary and service cuts at a time when many members in our community need it most. Could you talk a little bit about what you would do to ensure that their need for free public transit is met?
JB: Well, first of all, I won't be able to do it by myself. It will be a team effort, with the community creating and making demands as they're doing now, where we see community members calling into the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Commission. It seems like the Commission’s views are changing and it's because the public is making demands. To bring it back to this race: the drivers, the workers, and the members recognize that they have power to make change. They approached me because I have a record for standing up for and fighting for working people and not being afraid to take on big corporations.
Everything I did as a member of Richmond City Council was to improve people’s quality of life, particularly those people our society views as less than. I really believe that there's enough wealth to spread, and it's we the workers, we the working class, who are creating that wealth for these gazillionaires. From the standpoint of the movement, that message is really starting to resonate with people. Like, "Yeah you know, we're creating all this wealth working our butts off but not seeing anything from it. Instead, we're seeing our wages cut and our rents increasing.”
Look outside: the planet and human beings are in danger. If we don't do something—if we just sit around and hope—nothing will happen. But when we join forces, and stand up and fight back, we can win!
MR: Any final thoughts or things that you want to share about the mission of your public transit campaign?
JB: The mission is simple: there are three different things to focus on. We must 1) ensure that workers are respected and provided with the protection they need; 2) bring about racial justice and equity for the riders; and 3) implement a Green New Deal and reduce greenhouse gases by creating an emissions-free fleet at a much quicker pace than currently planned. One thing that motivates me in this race is understanding that public transit is a right, not a commodity to be privatized. Everyone deserves a right to move about, to get around and get about.
Molly Robinson is a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines environmental and material histories in the United States through craft traditions like basketmaking.
Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of a delightful article, if we may say so. You can help make more of these by donating a small amount to The Trouble. Most of your money goes directly to paying authors. None of it goes to profit or advertisers, because we are a non-profit and we don’t believe in that stuff.