Environmental Justice and Space, Place, & Identity

The late 1970's through the early 1990's saw activism, litigation, and scholarship turning towards what we now think of as the Environmental Justice movement. Outrage over the placement of a PCB landfill in Warren County, North Carolina led to a 1983 US government report, Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills..., which examined the placement in poor Black areas of this and three other toxic waste landfills in the southeastern United States. 

This was followed in 1987 by a national-scale study, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, a report by the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ.

During this time period, sociologist Dr. Robert Bullard was publishing research on race and the environment. His most famous work was Dumping in Dixie, whose first edition came out in 1990. 

1991 saw the First National People of Color Environmental Summit. And by the 2000's, various forums made clear that opening environmental justice work to climate change analysis and action would be key.

Chronology:

• 1982.  Warren County, NC., PCB Landfill Protest

  • 1982 Washington Post Article.

  • 2007 book: Transforming Environmentalism: Warren County, PCBs, and the Origins of Environmental Justice, by Eileen Maura McGurty. [Book review from Contemporary Sociology here.] 

• 1983.  The Siting Of Hazardous Waste Landfills and their Correlation With Racial And Economic Status Of Surrounding Communities (RCED-83-168). General Accounting Office [Now Government Accountability Office]. Washington, DC. June 1.

• 1987. Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A national report on the racial and socio-economic characteristics of communities with hazardous waste sites. United Church of Christ. Commission for Racial Justice. New York, N.Y. [From title page: Benjamin F. Chavis, Executive Director; Charles Lee, Director, Special Project on Toxic Injustice.]

• 1990. Robert Bullard's Dumping in Dixie: Race, class, and environmental quality. Boulder: Westview Press. [Book review from The Review of Black Political Ecology here.]

  • Selected early articles by Dr. Bullard include:

  • 1983. "Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community." Sociological Inquiry

  • 1986. "The Politics of Pollution: Implications for the Black Community." Phylon. With Dr. Beverly Wright.

  • 1987. "Environmentalism and the Politics of Equity: Emergent Trends in the Black Community." Mid-America Review of Sociology. With Dr. Wright.

  • 1993. Race and Environmental Justice in the United States. Yale Journal of International Law.

• 1991. National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. Key documents:

  • 1991. The Principles of Environmental Justice. First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. En español: Los Principios de la Justicia Ambiental. 

  • 2002. Principles of Working Together. Second National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. Additional documents from this summit such as "Principles For Alliance with Green Groups" and documents for youth work, along with much detail on follow-on work from across the EJ community, can be found at ejnet.org.

• 2002-2009 and beyond. See ejnet.org's section on Climate Justice Principles.