This seems like a good time to reflect on the important role the federal government—especially the Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration—has played as a champion of civil rights, regardless of which party was in the White House.
To help guide us in our reflection, here is a speech delivered by Stanley S. Scott, special assistant to President Gerald R. Ford, to the American Transit Association, the legacy organization to the American Public Transportation Association on May 21, 1974. Let’s listen in.
Of all the travel modes, transit most affects our minorities. I am proud, therefore, that we have been able, under the President’s Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act, to provide, during the past three years, nearly $3 billion to assist transit improvement in some 150 cities. One billion dollars of this has gone to buy 15,000 transit buses and to save some 70 local bus companies from extinction.
The significance of this tremendous assistance program to the government’s civil rights efforts lies in terms of the famed “Title VI. This section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting all forms of discrimination in any activity which receives federal assistance, means any form of discrimination in public transit is a thing of the past.
The Title VI provisions are supplemented by three Executive Civil Rights orders covering minority business enterprises, equal opportunity in construction employment and equal opportunity employment in Federal agencies. In regard to the latter, I am happy to note that the minority representation in the Department of Transportation’s Urban Mass Transportation Administration [antecedent of the FTA] was about 33 percent, with 21 percent of the professional staff coming from minority groups.
In addition to these executive orders, three other laws also mandate additional civil rights protection in transit functions. These are the Fair Housing Act of 1968; the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policy Act of 1970.
This whole civil rights thrust in transit is, consequently, an effort of major proportions. I am very happy and very proud, therefore, that your association under President Bob Pollock’s, leadership has established the ATA Committee on Minority Affairs. This committee will insure that minority concerns receive adequate attention.
The need for this new ATA Committee on Minority Affairs can be better appreciated when I tell you our Federal transit program employs 14 civil rights workers who oversee a Federal expenditure of about $900,000,000 a year. You will understand, then, when I say the proper enforcement of our civil rights orders must become a joint effort of the Federal government, local government and industry.
And there is work for your Committee to do. Our monitoring indicates that employment of Black transit equipment operators is generally good, while the representation of Spanish surnamed Americans is not proportional. Both minority groups are also poorly represented in management or supervisory positions; and minority participation on transit boards and planning commissions is very low. Of the 2300 members of these boards across the country, only 250 were minority representatives or women.
Now I am aware of the difficulties of meeting the many challenges presented by transit operations today. But I am also aware of the urgent need to meet our civil rights responsibilities. I am convinced we can do both, and I am equally convinced that in the long run, this potential double victory will be good for transit and good for our local communities.
Stanley S. Scott, a prominent Black journalist, was special assistant to the president for minority affairs from 1973 to 1975. In that role, he served as President Ford’s liaison on minority businesses, civil rights, and equal employment opportunity. He died in 1992.
:pg
_____
Articles may be republished with the byline “By Paul Griffo” at the beginning and the following attribution at the end: “Originally published at paulgriffo.com.”