Raphael Warnock: Freddie Gray Had A Criminal Record Because Of Lead Paint

Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, now a candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, discusses the link between environmental issues and criminal justice for black Americans during a Q&A after a lecture at the Memorial Church of Harvard University in October 2019.Show more

Partial Transcript:

"People who are traditionally in the civil rights movement need to pay more attention to climate change, and the folks who have been engaged in the climate movement, that has for too long been suburban and white and middle class, need to pay attention to civil rights issues and the intersectionality of those issues. Poor people and people of color, people who benefit the least from the revenues or the technology that create climate disasters are impacted the most. High incidences of asthma, race is the clearest indicator of where a toxic dump will be located. So all of these things are connected. Freddie Gray in Baltimore. You remember that case? Freddie Gray who died in the custody of the police and became one of those flashpoints for this issue about encounters between the police and ordinary citizens, his story didn't begin there. Freddie Gray grew up in Baltimore, where I was a pastor for almost five years. He was a victim of environmental hazards in the built environment. Lead poisoning. In substandard housing. In a country where we have known for decades what lead poisoning does and how it leads to behavioral issues in the classroom and learning difficulties. And then so he becomes part of the prison pipeline. So these civil rights issues, human rights issues, climate change both in the natural world and built environment, are all part of this larger issue that speaks to the soul of America. Flint, Michigan, all of these years later. Problem's still not corrected. There was another Fred Gray. Fred Gray was Dr. King's lawyer in Montgomery. Dr. King got in trouble, Fred Gray, who's still alive, brilliant lawyer, pushed through Jim Crow segregation, got his law degree, he would defend Dr. King when he was arrested. Fred Gray fought against the signs in front of water fountains that said "white" and "colored." Freddie Gray, Baltimore, decades later, never saw or experienced such signs. But he died, and poor children in Flint, Michigan, are being crushed in a world where there are no signs in front of water fountains that say "white" or "colored," but the water is literally poisoning our children. And so these things are connected, and that's the work that all of us are called to do. It's not one or the other. It's both/and."

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND-x8-uaQLM

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