For virtually all of the Active Transportation Alliance’s 34-year history, the bosses have been white guys.
Like many Chicago nonprofits, Active Transportation’s staff is mostly white, and by its own admission, the organization has made some mistakes when it comes to addressing the needs of communities of color—more on that in a bit. Having a person of color in charge could be helpful for avoiding such tunnel vision in the future.
He argued that holding the summit downtown during business hours, with a $50 admission charge, guaranteed that few west-siders would attend, and noted that all of the announced speakers were white. Since, he said, Black residents would be largely excluded from a conversation that could impact their safety, he called on Active Trans to cancel the event, and the group did so.
Reed noted that he and other Black bike advocates in Chicago gave a presentation before the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council in December 2014 requesting a more equitable distribution of cycling resources, such as bike lanes, Divvy stations, and bike education programs for African American communities. During the meeting then-Active Trans director Ron Burke asked whether the Black advocates had data to back up their claim of inequities. “That question . . . felt like a public challenge to us and implicitly came off as if Ron doubted us,” Reed said.
Charlie Short, who’s white, was working with Active Trans as a consultant to the Chicago Department of Transportation at the time, managing bike and pedestrian safety programs, and was present at the bike council meetings. He also recalls recalcitrance from Active Trans on racial justice issues then. “In the meeting where Oboi and the other Black activists spoke, Ron Burke was superdefensive,” he said. “I felt that Ron was only interested in a certain vision of what active transportation advocacy looked like, and anything outside of that could be dismissed. . . . When it came to equity, Ron was insistent that the organization was doing enough.”
Board president Bob Hoel, who’s white and is chairing the search committee, confirmed that. “Our mission clearly states that equity must be at the center of our work.”
