Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism
Submitted by Robert Bullard on March 25, 2007 - 3:13pm.
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This session will be on: June 28, 2007 - 1:00pm It will be held at: Centennial Ballroom B room at the Atlanta Marriott Downtown View scheduleOrganization DescriptionThe Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University was founded in 1994 to assist, support, train, and educate people of color students, professionals, and grassroots community leaders with the goal of facilitating their inclusion into the mainstream of environmental decision-making. The EJRC's programs build on the work that environmental justice leaders have been engaged in for over two decades. Through informal networks, environmental justice researchers have forged bonds with impacted communities and developed common strategies to increase environmental literacy and educate at risk communities. The EJRC is a comprehensive university-based research center whose main mission is education, training, research, information storage, retrieval, and dissemination. The center serves as a national clearinghouse, repository, and archive of the largest collection of environmental justice materials in the world (i.e., books, reports, monographs, proceedings, photographs, slides, videos, audio tapes, etc.). Proposal Demographicsidentify as people of color Session DescriptionThis session is held as part of the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the United Church of Christ landmark 1987 Toxic Wastes and Race report. This year, the UCC commissioned the Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty - 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism in the United States report. The new report is the first to use 2000 census data, a current national database of commercial hazardous waste facilities, and Geographic Information Systems to count persons living nearby to assess nationally the extent of racial and socioeconomic disparities in facility locations. The key findings of the report include: • People of color make up the majority (56%) of those living in neighborhoods within 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities, nearly double the percentage in areas beyond 3 kilometers (30%). Study Conclusions • Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the location of the nation’s hazardous waste facilities are geographically widespread throughout the country. Reversing the Tide Amid these attacks, the report authors of Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty and a chorus of environmental justice activists and civil rights leaders in the U.S. are calling for steps to reverse the dismantling of federal environmental justice initiatives. In addition to calling for reinstating the TRI report requirements, EJ leaders are pushing for Congressional oversight along with a clear legislative mandate for the EPA. The session provides EJ and other activists an update on Toxic Wastes and Race o 2007; the session will have four panelist who will make PowerPoint presentations followed by Q&A; all presentations will be in English; handouts will include the report Executive summary. First NameRobert Last NameBullard Contact E-mailrbullard4ej@worldnet.att.net Proposing OrganizationEnvironmental Justice Resource Center at CAU Organization Websitewww.ejrc.cau.edu Position or TitleDirector Contact Telephone678-725-0435 Alternate Telephone404-880-6920 FormatPanel with PowerPoint presentations Contact CityAtlanta KeywordsAdvocacy Antiracism Ecology and sustainability Audience Numbermore than 250 people Contact StateGA Contact ZIP30314 |
Two of the principal authors, Drs. Robert D. Bullard (Clark Atlanta University) and Beverly Wright (Dillard University), of the 2007 "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty 1987-2007" report will serve as panelists in this session. Dr. Bullard will present the study findings and policy recommendations. Dr. Wright, a native of New Orleans and a Hurricane survivor, will present the case study of toxic wastes, race, and post-Katrina New Orleans. Sheila Holt Orsted (whose Dickson, Tennessee community is profiled as the "poster child" for environmental racism in the report) will join the panel to put a human face on the report. For an up-to-date account of the Holt family's environmental racism struggle against TCE contamination from the Dickson County (Tennessee) Landfill see http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/Dicksonupdate.htm.