This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
From Dorene Bolze, CEO
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
Around the country and across the world we are at a defining and pivotal moment. We need to fight for our civil liberties and tackle the many structural injustices that are out in the open as the result of the pandemic, economic upheaval, and the fanning of the flames of factionalism. We all must pull together to understand and remove deep-seated structural injustice and inequality in our culture, government, economy, institutions and communities. We must bring our collective strengths, expertise, and networks together or we cannot succeed. As a society we must do this now and sustain this effort as long as it takes.
Our organization’s vision of clean water and healthy rivers for all Tennesseans requires the removal of environmental inequities. At their core, environmental inequities are based on economic inequality, discrimination, and the erosion of civil liberties. To succeed, we must work collectively with many partners to address systemic injustices in government decision-making, banking and access to capital, policing, health care, the economy, education, the judicial system, agriculture, and campaign finance, as well as environmental protection.
We must all strive to honor and celebrate our individuality and differences, and fight for the humanity and dignity of all people, and for the right to a clean and healthy world for everyone. We will all have different ways to do this, to step up, to make a difference that reflects an America moving closer to its stated ideals. The Harpeth Conservancy is committed to these ideals. It is now or never.