On an early morning this September, I stood in front of the headquarters of Citibank, chanting and singing as 31 activists were dragged away by police for blocking the building’s entrance. I’m a retired teacher and a grandmother living in Texas. How did I wind up helping lead this action in New York City?
Over the past three months, organizers have engaged in the Summer of Heat on Wall Street, the largest sustained civil disobedience campaign in the climate movement’s history. For the past twelve weeks this summer, more than 5,000 people — from faith leaders to scientists, from students to grandparents — have taken to the streets, demanding that Wall Street banks end their funding of climate chaos. That’s how I ended up rallying at Citibank’s doorsteps.
Citibank is the world’s number one funder of fossil fuel expansion. Since 2016, the banking behemoth has spent more than $396 billion on coal, oil and gas projects worldwide. Many of these fossil-fuel projects are developed in Black, brown, and working-class communities like mine, where residents face oil spills, toxic air and devastating health impacts.
Citibank’s unrelenting funding of fossil fuels hits close to home. After nearly 40 years of working in education, I decided to retire in Surfside Beach, Texas, a barrier-island town an hour south of Houston. I was ready to trade in my work suits for a swimsuit, and felt a profound peace along the beaches of Surfside. I couldn’t wait to share this Gulf Coast oasis with my kids and grandchildren.
But Citibank had other plans. Upon arriving in Surfside, I learned about the Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT), a massive fossil fuel project proposed just miles from my home. If completed, SPOT would be the largest offshore oil facility in the country, emitting more than 160,000 pounds of air pollutants each year. Citibank funds the SPOT project through some of the $2.5 billion that the bank funnels into Enterprise, the creator of the SPOT project.
Horrified by the impact that SPOT would have on my community and future generations, I joined Better Brazoria, a community group in Brazoria County organizing to stop the development. Our coalition collected more than 40,000 signatures opposing SPOT’s construction. We traveled to Washington, D.C. and staged a sit-in at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s offices, demanding Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stand with us and reject this dangerous project. Despite the outcry, the Biden administration formally approved SPOT in April.
It’s hard not to feel invisible when fighting the development of these deadly fossil fuel projects. My heart breaks seeing the callous indifference of the companies who lead these projects, the elected and appointed officials who talk a big game on climate just to rubber-stamp their construction, and the Wall Street billionaires who fund it all. That September day in front of Citibank HQ, as bankers and security guards shielded their eyes from me, I watched with a heavy heart as our demands to simply meet with Citibank’s executives were once again denied.
And yet, standing in front of that office, I couldn’t help but feel a real sense of solidarity. Next to me were Brazilians resisting oil and gas expansion in the Amazon, Bangladeshis fighting against deadly floods caused by climate change, and Black families from Louisiana demanding a just future for their children. Behind me were more than 30 strangers who were willing to risk arrest in solidarity with my family’s struggle against the banking giant — joining more than 700 people arrested over the course of the Summer of Heat campaign.
As I watched the last police car drive protesters away, I also felt my family’s own history of civil disobedience. Nearly 70 years ago, my cousin, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, helped to start the Montgomery bus boycott. She lost her job as part of that campaign, and had to leave her life in Alabama behind. I fought back tears that day in New York, thinking about the strength she still gives me, all these years later. We have a responsibility to take on injustices, no matter what they are — from being able to sit where you want on the bus, to the right to breathe clean air.
We know the pressure we’re putting on Wall Street works. After all, we’ve seen what victory looks like. Climate activists have pressured major banks like Barclays and HSBC to take steps to divest from oil, coal and gas projects. Just this month, the Dutch bank ING announced a new policy to wind down its financing of fossil fuels. Even Citibank, which has resisted activists’ demands all summer, announced new policies in July that curb its project-related financing for oil and gas expansion in the Amazon — after years of pressure from Indigenous communities and climate allies.
I headed back to Surfside without promises from Citibank about their fossil-fuel finance. But I returned with a deeper faith that when our communities unite in solidarity, we can create real and lasting change.
Sue Page is a retired educator and a current member of Better Brazoria.
