100 Years: Motordom's Manifesto, November 9, 1922. From Edward Mehren's editorial, "Motor Killings and the Engineer," Engineering News-Record.

“We love our kids and want them to live.”. Even small towns like Boonville, Indiana, need people-friendly streets. To my knowledge, The Ballad of Boonville’s Speedsters has not yet been set to music.

Two more traffic lights, plus stop signs and school zone signs, were installed later that week.

Workers began installing the traffic light late that afternoon, within 24 hours of Michael Jones’s death. Working under floodlights, the crew continued all night, finishing the job before dawn.

Later that morning Camden’s mayor, Alfred Pierce, ordered a traffic light installed at Van Hook and 8th Street. Informed that he was required to get approval from state authorities first, he disregarded the warning and proceeded anyway.

Police helped enforce the blockade, supplying traffic barriers and redirecting drivers around the affected area.

Soon residents, mostly women and children, closed Van Hook Street, choking off motor traffic in a ten-block area. Two local volunteers were injured by a driver who refused to honor the pickets.

The leaflets called for traffic lights to give walkers a chance to cross the street, and informed readers that “three of our children have died in this vicinity within this year.”.

Early the following morning, Ronald Evans, chairman of the Camden Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, stood in Van Hook Street, handing out leaflets to drivers as children walked to school.

We will never know how many lives livable streets advocates saved. May we learn from the example they set us. On September 30, 1968, a motorist struck and killed four-year-old Michael Jones near his home on Van Hook Street (now Carl Miller Boulevard) in Camden, New Jersey.

Ultimately the demonstrators’ demand was denied, but authorities added new bus stops so that no child would have to cross Hylan Boulevard to get to or from the school bus. Today the intersection has traffic lights, including pedestrian signals.

Over the following three or four days, residents blocked the intersection of Wiman Avenue and Hylan Boulevard, demanding a traffic light. On some occasions at least 100 demonstrators picketed the corner.

Twelve days later, at the same corner, a school crossing guard was badly injured by a truck driver.

Americans fought for walkable streets. Great Kills, Staten Island, 1970: On February 6, Tommy Osgood, age 5, was walking to the school bus stop with his brothers, ages 8 and 9. In front of his older brothers, Tommy was struck and killed by a motorist.

RT @MayorBowser: Washington, DC is a beautiful city. DC is home to 700K people and welcomes millions every year. We have the #1 park syst….

The intersection today:

Lawson, a retired math teacher and school counselor, is currently Marlboro County Councilwoman for District 4. Today six single-lens lights, which flash red or yellow, are in service at the corner where Pamela O’Neal was killed.

Pearlie Lawson collected a thousand signatures on a petition for a traffic light to protect walkers. The request was denied.

To board their school bus, some children had to cross Bennettsville’s busy highway bypass. Over a 10-year period from 1973 to 1983, eight children were killed where Marshall Street crossed the bypass. One of them was nine-year-old Pamela O’Neal.

Even small communities need walkability advocates. In Bennettsville, South Carolina, Pearlie Lawson long led demands for safe walking conditions. Bennettsville is the county seat of Marlboro County.

No signal was installed.