Protesters on Saturday acted out skits and planted signs in front of the homes of various city officials to draw attention to the plight of residents near Shingle Mountain in southern Dallas and to demand the city begin cleaning up the environmental mess.
Southern Sector Rising, a coalition of activist organizations focused on southern Dallas, and Downwinders at Risk, a North Texas environmental activism group, put on the demonstration in hopes of ridding the neighborhood of a shingles dumping ground that has polluted the area for years.
Evelyn Mayo, chairwoman of Downwinders at Risk, said she feels that her group and Marsha Jackson, 62, whose health has suffered while living next to Shingle Mountain, have exhausted every formal plea to the city. Protesting is their next option, she said.
“This is an escalation of previous strategies that have been used, considering we started with meeting with council people, attempting to meet with the mayor — he never actually met with us — and a meeting with” City Manager T.C. Broadnax, Mayo said.
In the afternoon, protesters in a convoy of at least 20 cars pulled up to the homes of Broadnax; Mayor Eric Johnson; City Council member Tennell Atkins, who represents the area in which Shingle Mountain stands; council member Omar Narvaez, chairman of the council’s Environment and Sustainability Committee; and state District Judge Gena Slaughter, who has overseen the Shingle Mountain case and in April 2019 ordered Blue Star Recycling to clear it out.
At each stop, demonstrators played the recognizable theme music to Law and Order from a speaker under a black, shimmering 8-foot-tall parade float mimicking Shingle Mountain. With actors performing impressions of the officials, protesters held 10-minute “mock trials” in which they found the officials guilty of what the group called “monstrous neglect.”
Misty Oquinn, who portrayed Jackson in the skits, said she hopes the protest will bring more awareness to the blight and danger of Shingle Mountain.
“I hope more people become aware of the fact that it’s even a thing. And I hope the city will go ahead and do the right thing,” Oquinn said. “I don’t really understand what they’re waiting for. And every day they continue to wait, Marsha gets sicker and sicker.”
Narvaez issued a statement late Saturday:
“The city stands behind Dallas residents seeking to ensure compliance with laws and regulations intended to protect human health and the environment,” the statement read, then noted that the city “filed a lawsuit against the responsible parties to hold them accountable. The city’s lawsuit is still in progress.
“The city manager has funds available for the cleanup and is preparing to move forward as soon as possible,” the statement read. “The property owner will also contribute money for the cleanup.”
Atkins’ neighbor Menkiti Rice, 43, said he hadn’t heard of Shingle Mountain before the protest. He said he feels for Jackson and hopes the protests will motivate Atkins to more action.
“I think we’re at a point, especially when it comes to Black and brown folks, we can’t just accept things as ‘that’s just the way it is,’” Rice said. “We got to start kicking up some dust and making things uncomfortable for people that have allowed it to go on.”
However, Broadnax’s neighbor Elizabeth Walker said the protest was alarming and that coming to the officials’ homes is not “the right way to do it.”
“I think [Broadnax] needs to be given grace and the proper time to make changes,” Walker said. “This is not the only thing that has impacted the city.”
Walker, a white woman, said economic issues and police brutality against Black Americans are more important matters than moving Shingle Mountain.
“I’m not saying that none of it is important,” she said. But also there’s a big uncertainty with what’s happening with 2020 and more pressure on our officials than any other year. We don’t know everything they’re facing.”
Mark Goodloe, one of the demonstrators, said it’s easy for the officials’ neighbors to label the protest as unfair because they don’t have to contend with the same conditions Jackson lives in every day.
“It’s a luxury for them to say that because, in a neighborhood where they don’t have to breathe in all this toxic [air], they can afford to wait for a vote to happen,” Goodloe said. “But unfortunately, the people who are exposed to this, they need to take action now because the more time you wait the more damage is going to be done.”
Atkins said he doesn’t understand why people are protesting since the city already agreed to clear Shingle Mountain. He said the city is in negotiations over the work and that city officials have no control over how fast the talks move.
“A protest is not going to speed the machine up,” he said.
Broadnax and Slaughter declined to comment. Johnson’s spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
