Investor Presentaiton
How Did the Environmental Justice Movement Arise?
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February 11, 1968. Memphis Sanitation Strike. Action taken against unfair treatment and environmental justice concerns in Memphis, Tennessee.
The incident was investigated by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was the first time African Americans mobilized a national, broad-based group
to oppose environmental injustices.
December 1979. Bean v Southwestern Waste Management Corp. and the Formation of Northeast Community Action Group. In Houston, Texas, a
group of African American homeowners fought to keep the Whispering Pines Sanitary Landfill from being placed within 1500 feet of a local public
school (and within two miles of 6 schools). This class action was the first of its kind in the United States that charged environmental discrimination
in waste facility siting under civil rights laws. While the lawsuit ultimately failed to prevent the construction of the landfill, it sent a clear message
for environmental justice cases across the country.
September 1982. Sit-in Against Warren County, NC PCB Landfill. The second time African Americans mobilized a national, broad-based group was a
nonviolent sit-in protest against a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) landfill. Over 500 environmentalists and civil rights activists were arrested and the
protest was unsuccessful in halting construction. This event is widely understood to be the catalyst for the Environmental Justice Movement.
April 1983. Publication of "Solid Waste Sites and the Houston Black Community". First comprehensive account of environmental racism in the US
that identified that African American neighborhoods in Houston were often chosen for toxic waste sites. All five city-owned garbage dumps, 80
percent of city-owned garbage incinerators, and 75 percent of privately owned landfills were sited in black neighborhoods, although African
Americans made up only 25 percent of the city's population.
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