Take a Stand for A Better CHS Transit Plan - Aug. 2020

Bus Stop in Mt. Pleasant

The system has failed again. 350 years of instictive oppression has birthed another tool for stunting the hopes of the next generation of hard working people trapped in the SC Low-country while those in power cruise to another generation of undeserved power. 

A pathetic plan. 

After 25 years and over Ten million dollars in tax payer funded meetings and design, the plan for rapid transit from Summerville to Charleston which is emerging is utterly inadequate. Real rapid transit runs for only 11.5 miles of the system in dedicated bus lanes from Success street through N. Charleston before ending at I-26 & Highway 78. The proposed system is mostly buses running in regular traffic 5.4 miles from MUSC to Success St. In N. Charleston. From Charleston Southern University for 7.4 miles running in congested traffic to Summerville. 

Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit will begin outreach on August 7 and a series of 3 meetings beginning August 14 to change the way we plan transit and affordable housing in the Lowcountry. That will be the foundation for an educational and voter information effort that we'll carry through the elections in November and into a final push for the best possible transit plan for the Lowcountry to be funded by the US Government in January 2021 after the economy demands an multi trillion dollar infrastructure stimulus bill. The meeting schedule is at the end of this post. We will carry this effort through the pandemic, depression and near civil war. We are ready. Go get your boots, mask anddrum and join us. The future will be worth it. Our grandchildren will thank you.

The opportunity to bring the system into the city on the old railroad line beneath I26 has been abandoned to a park proposal which gives the rich a place to play while the people who wash their dishes and sweep their street wait in buses snarled in traffic on Meeting St. The promised additional bus services, including service to area beaches promised in the 2015 I26 Alt Study still aren’t running. This isn’t the system which can liberate Ladson, Lincolnville and Summerville from congestion and lost hours in the car. It won’t support the dense, walkable communities we need to provide affordable housing or a higher quality of life in North Charleston. It won’t reconnect downtown Charleston to the region. 

Not What Charleston County Was Promised

Chris Jackson sets up Tranist Planning activity

This isn't what the I26 Alt Study promised in 2015. It's not what we voted for. It's not what Charleston County shoppers been paying for since May 2017. This plan represents a decision by elected officials, hiding behind the Council of Government’s black box of non accountably, to build a system sure to fail so working people will continue to live lives so frustrated by the automobile and traffic that they will never present any threat to the aging and inadequate political power structure which is allowing our quality of life to erode. We must make our own plans. This is our last chance to build a landscape which can be a home tens of thousands of people who can create community rich in civic life, art and the type of transit which recovers time for family, community and citizenship. The coming federal stimulus bill will provide the funds to build the system right. 

We have to have the right plan in place to meet an upcoming multitrillion dollar emergency infrastructure bill sure to emerge after the November election. If all we have is an inferior plan, all they'll fund is an inferior system. 

For those who want it, a traditional car based suburban landscape will still cover most of the Lowcountry. Over 100 thousand new single family homes have already been permitted, mostly on dead end suburban streets hung on highways expected to receive over 3 billion dollars in planned expansions. It hasn't worked anywhere before and it will only result in worse congestion here. However, people will have a choice. If a live in and with your car, isolated by traffic is what you want, that will be available. 

Join us at one or more socially distanced meetings outdoors to begin planning the future. Let’s fashion an enforceable demand for what we need to build rapid transit which works from Summerville to the sea. Lets prepare to take that demand into demonstrations, government meetings and finally to the ballot box in November. We’ll lose the future we could have if this disastrous plan is adopted. 

Bring your mask, your own chair, hydration and a drum if you have one. Bring your neighbors if you can. 

After the meetings, We'll be contacting the elected officials on the COG Board to ask them to adopt a plan that meets the commitment made to voters and transit riders.

Three Meetings, Aug. 14 - 18 

 Please attend one of more of these three meetings. Each is slightly different in focus and activity. We welcome your input and suggestions. Bring maps and drawings if you can. Models are even better. 

Transit Outreach in N. Charleston with Jesse Williams

Outreach Begins August 7. Help us reach our community. The COG is spending tens of thousands or taxpayer dollars to drown out objections to this plan with a professionally executred PR plan under a new PR director, in addition to two other paid staff. We'll push back on the ground. Intensive community outreach in support of these efforts begins in Charleston on Friday, August 7 and will continue through to Wed. August 19. If you would like to help as a grass roots communicator, put on your boots and your mask and contact Lowcountry Lightening Political Communications, LLC, 

• Chris Jackson & Linda Saylor will be leading the effort in N. Charleston, Ladson, Lincolnville, Summerville and Berkeley County. 
• William Hamilton & Donna Gill will be leading the effort in Charleston, East Cooper, and West Ashley. 
• Millicent Middleton will be leading the effort on the Sea Islands and in Walterboro.

August 14, 2020, 6 to 8 pm Charleston- Grassroots Lowline Community Planning, Lowline Alternative Visioning. How can we save Charleston as a place to raise a family, be a citizen, create and enjoy life as a resident of modest means. Can Charleston be saved from becoming a playground for the tourist and the rich? If it can't be saved, how can we build access that is fair to the workers who can't afford to live there, but must work there? Congressman Joe Cunningham will have staff at this meeting. The skatepark was made with salvaged materials, upcycled into a beloved gathering place. What can we learn from that example? Huger Street Skate Park (700 feet North of Huger Street, under I26) Charleston, SC 29403  Facebook signup for Charleston Meeting. 

Skylyn talks transit in 29403

Tuesday, Aug 18, 2020, 6 – 8 PM Summerville, Ladson & Lincolnville Meeting Design Life Outside the Car. Making Highway 78 & Ladson work as a new and risign tranist enabled community, Connecting the Fairgrounds and Flea Market, Summerville as a transit empowered regional social and civic hub. Lincolnville Town Hall Picnic Shelter 141 W Broad St, Lincolnville, SC 29485 Facebook signup for Summerville, Ladson, Lincolnville Meeting.

Thursday, Aug 20, 6-8 pm North Charleston Meeting Envision New Community, Safe, Walkable, Affordable. a future for North Charleston rising as other places sink beneath the sea. At the Workshops at Howard Heights 1886 Riverview Ave. North Charleston SC (1/2 block west of Spruill Ave on Riverview)  Facebook signup for N. Charleston Meeting. 

More information

We've been blogging and organizing about these issues for over 9 years and working on it intensely since 2016. This blog contains most of our important communications.

You can reach William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com

Black Rides Matter- Together We Go Forward!

Fighting for Better Transit on Folly Rd.

Fight for Better Lowcountry Transit before July 10.

In 2016, black voters in Charleston County delivered the margin of victory in the vote for the half penny sales tax. They were promised a rapid transit system to serve their communities in our urban core and improved bus service all the way to area beaches. They agreed to pay for this with a regressive sales tax, the burden of which falls most heavily upon the poor, disabled and elderly. Four years later, the promised improvements to bus service made in the half million dollar 2015 I26 alt study haven’t materialized. Over 40 million dollars of current transit funding has been diverted to a “Pay Go” plan for road construction, an interest free loan from transit riders to privileged drivers.

Six miles of the planned rapid transit line on highway 78 have been downgraded to in traffic operation. In Charleston a 1.5 mile abandoned railroad line will be wasted on a yuppie puppie partially privatized dog walking park with café’s for tourists and the rich while transit struggles to move on Meeting street. A Lincolnville resident will lose an hour a day sitting on a system which wasn’t what they were promised, voted for, or have paid for. The resulting system will be a waste of over 300 million dollars, not rapid, not a system and barely transit.

We have until July 10. Join us in the fight for transit which liberates us from the suffocating oppression of the automobile. Force our leaders to build a safe, reliable, fast transit system from Summerville to the Sea.

Summerville, Ladson, Lincolnville and Sangaree should Demand:

See our detailed Memo on BRT issues in this area- Summerville to the Sea

1. Rapid transit operation in dedicated lanes on Highway 78 from River’s Ave to Downtown Summerville.

2. Safe, comfortable, lighted stops which can be reached safely from the side of the road.

3. A system which can complete the trip from Line Street in downtown Charleston to downtown Summerville in 59 minutes.

4. Service all the way to Hutchison Square in Downtown Summerville with a sheltered stop in the business district near there.

5. Connecting Service in downtown Charleston at a safe, comfortable station hub on Line Street which connects to Folly Beach and the Isle of Palms.

North Charleston Should Demand:

Children in N. Charleston building a model transit system.

1. Affordable housing walkable connected to major stops in and around the old Navy Hospital and other locations.

2.  Improved bus service throughout N. Charleston, including half hour frequencies on major routes as called for by the Charleston Area Justice Ministry.

3. Build “Complete streets” through N. Charleston so riders can reach transit safely on foot, by connecting bus or by bike. Delay construction of a wider I-526 until after improved transit is constructed and operating.

Charleston, James Island, Mt. Pleasant and West Ashley should demand:

1. The BRT should operate on the abandoned railroad line into the city out of congested traffic to Line Street, through and as part of the Lowline Park System and include space therein for high quality stops and a regional transit hub at Line Street. Read our position on how the Lowline park system should be built to accommodate and be more successful with transit. 

2. Reliable and efficient service on the BRT and regular bus lines to allow the working people of Charleston to access employment without having to pay the city’s exploitive rents or struggle with downtown’s declining quality of ordinary life for working people.

3. Transit service prioritized over car traffic be established and maintained to the beaches at both Folly and Isle of Palms.

4. A memorial to Civil Rights and Transit Hero Mary Bowers and others who forced integration of Charleston’s streetcars in 1867. Read our Reconstruction Transit Equity history.

5. Planning for a coastal transit line along Highway 17 to begin immediately with operations to commence no later than June 1, 2025 from Awendaw to Red Top.

Act Now, Before July 10

· Go to our online version of this page for links, background and organizing tools at .

1- Contact us: 
www.blfltransit.com; 
wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or
Phone (843) 870-5299

2- Make your priorities known during the BCD COG’s Online Meeting until July 10, 2020. 

3- Copy your statements to our public blog post comment pages, this page is best. See below.

4- Join us on our Zoom Conferences Monday, July 6 and Wednesday, July 8 at 9 pm

Monday, July 6 at 9 pm.

Join Zoom Meeting
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Topic: Black Rides Matter Together We Go Forward CHS Wed. July 8

Time: Jul 8, 2020 09:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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Transit to the Atlantic, Summerville to the Sea

What We Need to Do

Millicent Middleton, Sea Island Unit Transit Advocate

The people of Summerville, Ladson and Lincolnville (hereinafter LinLadSum) have been telling us they want the rapid transit line completed for three years. It is time for the people of the North to drive the glacial and obscure planning process to completion and yank the concrete, asphalt and metal out of government to see it constructed and running from Summerville to the Sea.

The people of Ladson, Lincolnville and Summerville have the rights to demand a Bus Rapid Transit Line to Charleston which runs in its own, dedicated lanes, has comfortable stations and completes the trip in 59 minutes as promised in the I26 alt study . We must demand that now, before July 10, 2020 through their “LCRT online meeting” and our own socially distanced advocacy. We’re asking you to submit your comments at their online meeting and paste copies of what you tell them into the comments here so we can share it with other.

Transit Advocates Discover Unrest in the Land of the Cars

Pendarvis Campaign working on Rivers Ave.

State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis pushed us into the area, where we had done almost no work, to see what we could find. The results from Carol Dotterer and Louise Brown’s initial canvass were a shock. (Note: Marvin Pendarvis has not approved the content of this blog. He doesn’t control us. We don’t control him. He is happy to talk about his own views on transit and transportation issues and has introduced five bills on the subject.)

Despite the fading exurban landscape (now turning into subdivisions and apartments) and abundance of pickup trucks, people along Highway 78 were ready for transit. In Lincolnville, we met people who had moved here from New York to take care of elderly family members and become imprisoned in immobility. We found the area’s largest business incubator, not in a shiny government subsidized building downtown, but in the Ladson Flea Market. They were ready. Nobody had even talked to Lincolnville about the project which was to pass through their town, but they were ready. They reminded us their town had been founded by African Americans who sought freedom with their own, independent town and mobility through their connection to the Railroad. In downtown Summerville we found a business district struggling with parking and traffic issues full of people ready to ride.

Transit Advocates in downtown Summerville.

Carol and Louise also found failure. Streets and communities lacked sidewalks. The existing LINK bus service was unreliable and infrequent even though they had delightful drivers who simply wouldn’t do impossible things with a bus. Attendance at the Coastal Carolina Fair had plummeted over the years due to traffic problems which had now cured themselves. In nearby Sangaree, we found an aging 1980s large scale development stripped of its bus service where poverty and immobility were reducing resident’s quality of life. We attempted to leaflet the Summerville Senior Center, where they called the Police Department to run our quiet leafleting effort off their property, we saw a man walk out to the edge of their property, old and frail, visit a tree alone and then struggle back with his cane. Had their been barbed wire around the perimeter, it wouldn’t have been a more effective prison for him.

Autocentric Oppression

Carol Dotterer with BRT Survey mark

The car is mandatory in LinLadSum. It dominates the landscape, the politics, and the lives of people. Those who have one, are slaves to it, spending as much as three hours a day locked inside it. Running simple errands might take an hour. They must buy more cars for their teenaged children in hopes they can escape the unending trial of parent as chauffer between the empty communities where nothing happens and the remote soccer fields and shopping centers where time can be somewhat better spent. The empty houses surrounded by the bare spots in the grass where all these expensive, sometimes broken cars are parked are barely homes. They’re places full of people so busy and exhausted trying to go somewhere that no one is really there. It’s cruel and stupid. It has to end.

For the elderly, poor, disabled, and young who don’t have access to the automobile. Survival is a humiliating marathon of begging for rides, calling Uber and doing without. There are desperately needed affordable apartments in Lincolnville sitting empty because you cannot survive there without a car and many elderly people have outlived or live far from their families. For the carless of Ladson, trip the grocery store is a goal requiring days of planning for the starts to align. A trip for pleasure or to explore the landscape tourists travel from around the world to see is an unimaginable luxury. The precious begged for rides must be conserved for the doctor, pharmacy and store. If you can walk to the LINK route, the bus may not show up at all or simply drive past. There is no bench or shelter to wait.

LinLadSum Does Not Have to be this Way

It does not have to be this way. Ladson, Lincolnville and Summerville have public transit which would embarrass a third world country. We’ve met people who know from personal experience that it is inferior to what they have in Ethiopia. Our Latino friends in Ladson assure it Brazil is better.

BLFT staff with transit planning activity

Bad transit preserves the political power of the men (they are almost all men) who fear what unleashing the creativity, citizenship and power of people in their region might do to their eroding grip on control. Parents who can show up for meetings. Seniors who can visit each other without being protected from transit leafleting. Young people who can explore and learn about the world. Freedom remains a dangerous thing.

The voters of Charleston County have already appropriated 250 million dollars to build and operate a Bus Rapid Transit Line to Summerville in their 2016 half penny sales tax referendum. The people of Ladson and Lincolnville have been paying for it with higher sales taxes since May of 2017. In Summerville, the tiny section needed probably doesn’t require a bond referendum.

We were promised a trip from downtown Charleston to Summerville in 59 minutes. Recently the Convil of Governments has proposed a system which runs in ordinary traffic from Charleston Southern to the edge of Downtown Summerville. Politicians in Summerville have proposed a Park and Ride lot on 5^th Avenue which would be five long blocks from Hutchison Square. The fact that someone might want to walk to or from the Bus Rapid Tranist system to downtown Summerville doesn’t seem to matter to them. They’re building a system for people to drive cars to parking lots to fit in the car saturated world they feel secure in.

Failure Alert

Lincolnville Town Hall

A Rapid Transit System which attempts to operate in regular traffic on the long, congested six miles of Highway 78 will fail. It won’t be rapid. It will be snarled in Traffic Congestion. It won’t be system because it won’t be able to keep a schedule any better than the exasperated drivers who can’t tell their wives, husbands and children when they might get home in their cars now. Finally, it won’t be transit because few people will ride it. Slow buses which wander around and maybe show up somewhere sooner or don’t work. In theory you can take the #1 CARTA Express to the Otranto Park and Ride and the LINK to Summerville and complete the trip (to the edge of town) in an hour and 28 minutues. In practice my best time, in several tries, has been two hours. It once took 2 hours and 45 minutes, when Ironcially, I attempted to take transit to a transit and road planning meeting at Azalea Park.

A few weeks ago, Lowcountry Up is Good, a locally based political action committee leafleted parts of Ladson in a lightening storm with the help of young volunteers organized by Linda Saylor. It was the last day before the election. When we told the kids there was no tomorrow, to just come back in. They asked if their efforts might decide the election. I told them they could. They hurled the doors of the van open and visited 250 houses in the driving rain while thunder and lighting blasted around them.

Those young people deserve a world they can grow in, explore, and prosper in. It we build a world which doesn’t do that, they’ll destroy us and build their own. The tired priorities of old men who like things as they are, slow, isolating and dysfunctional, need to get out of the way.

What LinLadSum Residents Need to Do Now

Go to their online LCRT meeting.Demand what you have paid for and been promised:

• 

  Help us get their attention
  

  Rapid transit operations in dedicated lanes on Highway 78 from River’s Ave to the edge of Downtown Summerville.
• Safe, comfortable, lighted stops which can be reached safely from the side of the road.
• A system which can complete the trip from Line Street in downtown Charleston to downtown Summerville in 59 minutes. 
• Service all the way to Hutchison Square in Downtown Summerville with a stop in the business district near there.
• Connecting Service in downtown Charleston at a safe, comfortable station on Line Street which connects to Folly Beach and the Isle of Palms.

If you want something more, don’t stop there. If you are in Ridgeville, tell them it needs to come to where you live. Linda Saylor and the lightning crew are working for you in Summerville, but they need a lot of help.

We have other blogs with more information on this project:

• Dhaka BRT Line 3 (Gazipur to Airport) If you think USA is #1, get a stiff drink before watching this. This is state of the art BRT. 
• Transit Enable the Lowline A look at the big mistake being planned for the South end of the BRT line.
• Progress is Possible (General Overview) 
• Lowcountry Futurescape
  
• Christian King answers 10 questions about transit, the best Candidate response we've ever received.

Proterra Electric Bus made in SC

Then take whatever you’ve told them at their online meeting and copy it into to comments to this blog post where the public can see it. The COG has already told Charleston County Council that all 1500 comments submitted through their online meeting are positive. Let’s put our demands where they can be shared and known. We’ll put hard copies of what you say here in front of your leaders and try to make them ready it. If that doesn’t work, we’ll set up banners by the roadway big enough for them to read when they’re not using their cell phone to tell their wives and husbands they’ll be stuck in traffic for another hour.

Written by 
William J. Hamilton, III
Executive Director, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit
(843) 870-5299
wjhamilton29464@gmail.com

Public Transit, Politics and Protest in the SC Lowcountry Now

Signing the Community Commitment to Transit

Until recently, establishment power in the United States preferred to retain control by avoiding overt oppressive violence. One of the ways this was accomplished was by building a landscape and transportation system which marginalizes the poor, disabled, young and senior citizens. These people have time, energy and motivation to commit to social justice movements and keeping them immobile renders them silent. Please don't add to their oppression by making a car and driver's license the price of entry to your protest event or campaign. Don't be complicit and allowing our precious transit vehicles to become instruments of oppression.

Make Sure your Campaign or Event can Be Reached on Transit

We believe it is essential that protest and political activity be planned for times and places where transit riders can reach them. A campaign or organization which chooses to plan without regard to transit access tells tens of thousands of transit dependent necessity riders that they're not welcome sand they should vote for someone else. It also tells environmentalists and choice riders that they must use a car, with its attendant social and environmental damage, to reach their event. Many people find driving the Charleston's angry traffic full of stressed people to be very taxing and more and more people refuse to do it. Those that do arrive at your event already worn down by the cruelty and violence of traffic.

Get your Prius Coal Rolled or tailgated by a white pickup and you'll know what we mean. In these stressed, angry times the fight trough traffic is often not worth it.

The late Mary Smith, appearing at Gay Pride as Syphide

We worked with the Marvin Pendarvis campaign to design a day long event on Saturday which puts serious, change making political activity in places where it can be reached by transit (with the exception of Summerville, which has not weekend service.) We're also using Bikes as part of the effort. Every event of the day is within a two block walk, on sidewalks of a stop on the #10 Rivers Ave. Bus line. The 9 am breakfast is one block from Superstop.

Remember, being transit enabled includes a safe trip home afterwards. Transit service ends early in some places. Few of our bus lines run past 8 pm and some riders must make a connection to another route to complete their trip. All trips can planned on Google Transit locally now.

Superstop is served by six different bus lines and is the easiest place for a transit rider to reach in teh region.

We're ready to help any campaign, Democratic, Republican or Independent plan events which are transit enabled. Just call William Hamilton, (843) 870-5299. We can usually work through it on zoom or over the phone.

Here is the event announcement for the Pendavis event. https://www.facebook.com/events/1192814577724690/

Opposition to the Use of Transit Vehicles to Facilitate Mass Arrests

Transit Campaign, 2016 Roadside Pitch on Highway 78

Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit opposes use of CARTA and LINK Transit vehicles to facilitate mass arrests in the Lowcountry. Transit vehicles are for bringing freedom and mobility to people, not oppression. We joined with our national coalition of transit, labor and social justice leaders in issuing this statement. As of this time, we are not aware of plans to mis use our local transit vehicles in this fashion, but with major actions planned for this weekend, we want to be on record and will be issuing a statement to the press today. This detailed release has information on what has happened in other cities. If you are planning an action, you should read the accounts from other places. https://labor4sustainability.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=487&fbclid=IwAR0nthrsm9NoKUQEFxrjcd1KU4lmiH0bnMMaq1M5dbMDzroXaWgD5ObKL98.

Plans for May 4th. Progressive Community Circle Rally Advance in Charleston, SC area

Leadership for Nov. 4^th Environmental and Social Justice Community Circle Rally Stepping Forward

Charleston, SC, USA- Leadership for the East, Environmental Justice; the West, social and economic justice; and the the South, family and community have stepped forward to lead the formation of the Community Circle at the planned May 4^th rally in the SC Lowcountry.

New Banner Illustration for Event Postings

Leadership in the Time of the Virus

Environmental activist Carol Dotterer will hold the Eastern Position on the Circle. To the South, Christian King, director of Pink House, a West Ashley neighborhood resource center will take charge. Erin McKee, Union Leader will coordinate the western quadrant of the circle. Jesse Williams, Charleston County Council candidate and North Charleston Community activist will lead the safety ranger team. William Hamilton, Attorney and Executive director of the Up is Good, PAC will provide overall leadership. Off site social media will be coordinated by Todd Chas, founder of the Goodsharing.net social network for Charleston area progressive activism.

Wendell Galliard, SC Legislator, has stepped up to work with local community leaders to find an appropriate location for the socially distanced demonstration in Charleston or North Charleston with proposed locations including Brittlebank Park on the Ashley River, the greensward at Riverfront park in N. Charleston, locations around the Felix C. Davis Center in Park Circle and the front lawn of the old Navy Hospital.

6 pm, Monday, May 4 has been selected as the time for the rally. A new graphic for social media postings has been prepared. A new summary event and social distancing plan for the event has been issued, dated. April 27. Previous versions are now out of date. A more more detailed operational plan is being drafted and will be reviewed during a Thursday, 9 pm zoom conference.

Possible Rally Footprint at N. Chas. Riverfront Park

Plans for social distancing at the rally are being refined now. Over 200 people will be able to gather without making contact which might transmit the Covid-19 virus. A group of ranger volunteers have been assembled to patrol the demonstration to prevent the sort of careless, instinctive social actions which can transmit the virus. The rally will gather separated household groups around a circle with a radius of 98.6 feet with speakers and musicians in the center. Stations, marked by surveyor’s flags will be spaced 12 feet apart around the circumference of the circle and participants, who must be in a household group isolating together must stay within arm’s length of their assigned flag during the event. Music, speakers and leadership will emanate from the circle’s center.  Input from the stations will be facilitated by FRS radio links provided by the rangers.

A team of off site social media experts has been organized who will work from their homes or places of isolation during the rally to capture and transmit content generated on the ground, in the center of and around the circle. The event will be live streamed on Zoom and Facebook.

Local Effort Connected to Continental #EarthDay2Mayday Mobilization

Lowcountry Up Is Good, PAC 2016 Referendum Campaign

The rally is part of the #CHS #EARTH RISING, a 12 day series of over 20 virtual and real world actions to reenergize the struggle for Environmental and Social Justice in the SC Lowcountry (USA). All planned events comply with social distancing guidelines and best practices. Organizers are challenging what they see as a right wing takeover of the civic square and free speech space in SC society. The effort is part of a continental #EarthDay2MayDay mobilization running from the 50^th. Anniversary of the 1^st Mayday to the 50^th Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings and Charleston’s own Right to Ride Day commemorating Mary Bower’s reconstruction era victory in her fight to desegregate Charleston’s horse drawn streetcars in 1867, considered the first Civil Rights victory in Charleston’s 350 year history.

Other events included in #CHS #EARTHRISING are community participation in CARTA’s online board meeting Wednesday, immediately followed by a community response on Zoom. On Thursday, a masked avenger will deliver handmade, artisan face masks to local leaders. On Wednesday evening Millicent Middleton will webcast a session of Wine Down Wednesday from Johns Island and local socialists will present a night class on Marx.

Carol Dotterer discusses transit with community member.

On Friday, May Day, a banner demanding a return of public transit to Charleston beaches will be pitched along a major roadway and a live stream will be offered. Legislator/Chef JA Moore will sell lunches which include a gourmet snack provided to local healthcare workers and first responders on Friday called "Feed it Forward." The East Side Community Pot Luck is being supported on Sunday. The effort concludes with the Community Circle Rally on Monday at 6 pm. All events are on the calendar at https://www.goodsharing.net/events on Goodsharing.net online.

Updates and More Information

Updates on planning are posted several times a day to the #CHS #EARTHRISING group on Goodsharing.net, Charleston’s new social network for progressive activism, at https://www.goodsharing.net/groups/2218670/ online. Those wishing to contact the organizers may call (843) 870-5299 or email wjhamilton29465@gmail.com.

END END END

For more information contact W. Hamilton (843) 870-5299 or email wjhamilton29464@gmail.com