20-Point Plan to Depopulate Black Atlanta
Atlanta is often affectionately called the “Black Mecca” of the South. The city has undergone a dramatic demographic shift over the past four decades. Black Atlanta is shrinking. Twenty major trends, a “20-Point Plan,” account for the depopulation of Black Atlanta. Many of these trends are detailed in The Black Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century, a book I edited in 2007.
Environmental Health and Racial Equity Book Signing at 2011 APHA Conference in Washington, DC
WASHINGTON, D.C. – I have attended dozens of public health conferences over the years. However, I am especially excited about participating in the 139th American Public Health Association (APHA) Conference & Exposition held this year at the Convention Center in Washington, DC since I will be signing my latest book, Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable, and Livable Communities, at 2:00pm, October 31, 2011.
Time for Tennessee to Give Environmental Justice to Black Family Poisoned by Toxic Landfill
The eight-year war against toxic racism is nearly over for Sheila Holt Orsted and the Harry Holt family, an African American family in Dickson, Tennessee whose well was poisoned with trichloroethylene (TCE) from the nearby leaky Dickson County Landfill, located just 54 feet from the family’s property line.Five generations of Holt family members grew up in the rural all-black segregated community on Eno Road in Dickson County. The Holt family survived the horrors of slavery and “Jim Crow” segregation, but it may not survive the toxic terror of the deadly trichloroethylene (TCE) chemical leaked into their wells from the nearby landfill. In 2003, the Holt family and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF) sued the city and county of Dickson, the state of Tennessee, and the company that dumped the TCE. And in 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sheila Holt Orsted and her mother Beatrice Holt filed a lawsuit against Dickson City and County governments seeking cleanup of alleged water contamination.
Principles of Environmental Justice Turn 21
It was twenty-one years ago today that the Principles of Environmental Justice were adopted on October 27, 1991 at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, held in Washington, DC. The EJ Summit, attended by well over 1,000 delegates, was probably the single most important event in the Environmental Justice Movement’s history.
Nation Loses Environmental Justice Warrior-Grandmother Emelda West
The nation lost a fiery environmental justice warrior on Saturday March 30, 2013 with the death of Emelda West, an 87-year old “take no prisoner” Marine Corps-type leader who became a hero to thousands of environmental justice activists around the country. She was the proud mother of seven children, nineteen grandchildren, and 24 great grandchildren.
