History of EJ

1
History of EJ

• Stems from LONG history of environmental activism
  within people of color communities (hidden
  history, often left out of the conventional
  public history of the environmental movement ion
  the U.S.)
• EJ has its roots in several movements that gained
  momentum in the 1960s 70s 1) Civil Rights
  Movement2) Labor Movement esp. farm workers
  protesting pesticide exposure, etc.3)
  Environmental Movement specifically
  anti-toxics activism
• 1970s rise of popular environmental movement in
  the United States
• Growing concern about the impacts of INDUSTRIAL
  pollution in the U.S. development of an
  anti-toxics agenda within environmental
  activism
• Between 1936 and 1969, Cuyahoga River in Ohio
  CAUGHT FIRE several times
• 1978 LOVE CANAL forever changed the way U.S.
  views corporate environmental responsibility

2
Love Canal

• Suburban neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY
• Early 1900s developer William T. Love created
  plans for a canal between the Upper and Lower
  Niagara Rivers to generate power for new
  industrial community
• construction began but canal was never completed
• 1920s -1950s partially built canal became a
  municipal and industrial chemical dumpsite
  (21,000 tons total)
• 1953 Hooker Chemical Company covered the canal
  and sold it to the city for 1 developers built
  100 homes and a school on the site meant to be
  a working class community
• 1970s record rains cause leaching of 82
  chemical compounds (11 carcinogens) from the
  rotting underground barrels into homes and
  schools high levels of leukemia birth defects
• 1978 story breaks spurs three-year struggle
  led by Lois Gibbs (a homemaker mother) for
  clean-up relocation
• Eventually declared a federal disaster area
  families relocated several lawsuits against
  chemical company to cover medical expenses
• Struggle led by COMMUNITY members leadership
  roles for WOMEN (especially mothers)

3
LOVE CANAL
4
1982 Warren County Protest

• often cited as the first EJ struggle (although
  many earlier struggles hidden in mainstream
  history)
• predominately African-American community in North
  Carolina targeted as landfill site for
  PCB-contaminated soil supposedly targeted on
  purely technical grounds
• Community staged a massive demonstration
  (peaceful, 6 weeks in duration, 500 people
  arrested) that linked environmental and civil
  rights agendas ? forged connections between
  race, poverty, and environmental risk
• 6,000 trucks of PCB-laced soil still dumped in
  the area but GRASSROOTS EJ Movement born out of
  this protest
• RACIALIZED the anti-toxics agenda

5
Explosion of EJ Research

• 1987 United Church of Christ Commission for
  Racial Justice (UCC-CRJ) published Toxic Waste
  and Race in the U.S.
• Authors coined the term environmental racism
• statistical evidence that the variable race is
  the best predictor of exposure to environmental
  risk (greater than class, etc.)
• Churches had been instrumental in Civil Rights
  Movement, also became central to EJ
• 1990 Robert Bullard (Clark Atlanta University)
  published Dumping in Dixie
• study of toxic facility citing in the Southern
  United States investigated proliferation of
  waste disposal sites in the South during the
  1970s
• tracing the historical, political, and economic
  roots of environmental injustice (as well as the
  impacts)

6
EJ Movement Gains Momentum

• October 1991 First People of Color
  Environmental Leadership Summit
• multi-racial summit held in Washington, D.C.
• many groups united under the people of color
  identity
• attended by thousands of activists
• Established an AGENDA for the EJ movement
• created the Principles of EJ
• characterized EJ as a radical alternative to the
  traditional environmental movement we speak
  for ourselves

7
Since 1991?

• Recognition by the federal government
  Executive Order 12898 signed by Clinton in 1994
• requires federal agencies to address EJ concerns
• Increased cooperation with traditional
  environmental groups still an uneasy alliance
• Expanding NETWORKS of EJ activists organization
  at national international level
• Asian Pacific Environmental NetworkFarmworker
  Network for Economic Environmental
  JusticeIndigenous Environmental
  NetworkNortheast Environmental Justice
  NetworkPeople of Color Environmental
  GroupsSouthern Organizing Committee for Economic
  Social JusticeSouthwest Network for
  Environmental Economic Justice
• Second People of Color Environmental Leadership
  Summit in 2002
• Expanding definition and agenda of EJ beyond
  toxics

8
What is the Traditional Environmental Movement?

• Agenda focused on wilderness preservation, etc.
• EJ Movement argued that people of color were also
  endangered
• Dominated by the Group of Ten environmental
  organizations
• Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, Greenpeace,
  Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense
  Council, Audubon Society, World Wildlife
  Federation, etc.
• Membership predominately white, middle and upper
  class
• Focused on government regulation, working within
  the system

9
Beyond Toxics

• Environmental injustice involves MORE than
  disproportionate exposure to toxics
• struggles over ACCESS to resources (healthy food,
  clean water, etc.), the right to maintain healthy
  communities and traditional ways of life, the
  right to control the future of their communities
• Agenda had been focused on EQUITY
• equal enforcement of environmental laws, equal
  participation in legal processes, equal access to
  funding and education, equal rights
• Agenda now also focused on AUTONOMY
• we dont want an equal slice of the same
  carcinogenic pie want the chance to alter the
  entire system and agenda behind environmental
  management in the U.S. and abroad (top-down,
  market-oriented approach)
• motivated by the conviction that LOCAL people
  ought to have the right and the authority to make
  environmental decisions ? From the Ground Up
• need to look to local people to create just
  sustainabilities (alternative strategies for
  governing environments)

10
Urban Gardening in South Central L.A.

• Struggle for FOOD SECURITY FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
• Who is involved in this EJ struggle? Why is this
  an EJ issue?
• What role has Dr. Pena played in this in this
  struggle? What does his research entail?
• What difficulties do academics face when they
  become involved in EJ issues?