Jesse Marquez, Relentless Environmental Justice Champion

Oct. 22, 1951 – Nov. 3, 2025

Jesse N. Marquez, a lifelong activist who transformed Wilmington from a neglected refinery town into the beating heart of Southern California’s environmental justice movement, died on Nov. 3. He was 74.

Marquez, founder and executive director of the Coalition for a Safe Environment, became one of the nation’s foremost voices against port pollution and industrial expansion after realizing, in 2001, that the Port of Los Angeles planned to double its footprint in his backyard. The discovery galvanized him and 30 of his neighbors to form what would become one of the most influential grassroots environmental justice organizations in the country.

A survivor of the 1969 Fletcher Oil refinery explosion, Marquez had witnessed firsthand how corporate negligence and government indifference endangered working-class communities of color. His lifelong mission —to protect his neighbors from the twin harms of refinery and freight pollution — grew from those flames.

“Hell no. Not over my dead body,” Marquez famously said when the port first unveiled plans for expansion behind an ivy-covered fence meant to muffle truck noise. That stand marked the start of a 25-year campaign that reshaped public policy, rewrote environmental law, and redefined who held power in the South Coast Air Basin.

Through his leadership, the Coalition for a Safe Environment joined forces with scientists, activists and policy experts to create the framework for community-led environmental monitoring and emissions reduction—ideas that would eventually influence California’s AB 32 and AB 617. Marquez took particular pride in helping to author the state’s first at-berth shore power rule, requiring ships to plug into clean electricity instead of burning diesel while docked — a regulation he called his “godfather rule.”

Born and raised in Wilmington, Marquez was already politically active as a teenager in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. As a participant in UCLA’s High Potential Program in the late 1960s, he studied alongside future leaders of the Brown Berets, MeChA, and the Black Panther Party — an experience that forged his understanding of community power.

Over the decades, Marquez helped build regional and national alliances, including the Moving Forward Network, a coalition of more than 50 organizations from port, rail and freight communities nationwide. His influence stretched from Sacramento to Washington, D.C., and his persistence helped usher in California’s transition to zero-emissions freight transportation by 2035.

On Jan. 13, 2025, between 6 and 7 p.m., Jesse was struck by a car in the crosswalk at the intersection of Wilmington and Lomita Boulevard. He had been in the hospital in a coma ever since until he was released last week to spend his remaining moments with his family and friends.

“Jesse showed us that ordinary people can rewrite the rules when they refuse to be silent,” said a longtime colleague. “He didn’t just fight pollution — he fought the system that made it possible.”

Marquez is survived by his family, his sons  and a movement he helped ignite. His legacy endures in every clean-air monitor, every community emissions plan and every child in Wilmington who breathes a little easier because he refused to give up.