Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: Who will be most impacted by Medicaid changes — and when

        Rebekah Barber · March 28
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Connecticut voters approved early voting. Here’s how their new secretary of state wants to make it happen.

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 13
      • Women lawmakers in Minnesota are in the vanguard of the democracy movement

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 3
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Election 2024
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Military
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Kathleen Cleaver in 2015 (Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

Environment & Climate

Mothers of the movement: Black environmental justice activists reflect on the women who have paved the way

Described as “the backbone of the environmental justice movement,” these women pioneered the work to protect communities.

By

Daja E. Henry, Jessica Kutz

Published

2023-02-17 09:00
9:00
February 17, 2023
am

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

This Black History Month, we’re telling the untold stories of women, women of color and LGBTQ+ people. Subscribe to our daily newsletter.

When Leah Thomas was earning her degree in environmental studies, she found that what she was learning in college and her personal experience did not match up. 

Thomas, who is Black, noticed that the environmentalists she was studying did not look like her, nor did they look like the Black women she knew to be integral in the fight for clean water, air and land.

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

 “[They] are the backbone of the environmental justice movement,” Thomas said. 

These women historically came from communities most impacted by environmental racism. They lost loved ones to the premature onset of cancers, could smell sewage in their backyards and took it upon themselves to organize their neighbors against industry.  

Black history reflections — and the path forward

This story is part of our Black History Month coverage. From in-depth Q&As to staff reflections and our inaugural 19th Celebrates event, we’re focused on telling stories along the twin themes of Black joy and Black resistance. Explore our work.

The communities exposed to human-made environmental hazards were and still are largely Black. Race is one of the strongest predictors of the location of hazardous waste sites, which are consistently located near Black and low-income neighborhoods, according to a study by the United Church of Christ.

For Black History Month, The 19th spoke with current leaders in the environmental and climate justice movements, including Thomas, about the trailblazing Black women in their own lives who have inspired and shaped their work.

These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.


Leah Thomas, author and activist, on Hazel M. Johnson

Hazel M. Johnson stands next to a map of Altgeld Gardens in Chicago, Illinois circa 1995.
Hazel M. Johnson (Courtesy of People For Community Recovery)

Someone I often talk about is Hazel M. Johnson because she, to me, is like the mother of environmental justice, and before it was even a field of study, was out in Chicago looking at the placement of toxic waste sites and pollution and highways, and how it impacted Black communities and how that correlated to cancer outcomes, etc. 

She coined this term called “toxic doughnut.” She was one of the first people that was able to almost unofficially say, look, our cities are surrounded in toxic waste, air pollution, why are there so many landfills right down the street? There’s so much power in data and being able to say no, there are more landfills in our neighborhood than the White neighborhood down the highway. 

So I feel like what really stands out about her work is just how courageous and curious she was, how she coined the term toxic doughnut to explain a phenomenon that’s been happening in so many Black communities, and I just think that there’s so much power in language that helps people feel seen and validated. Even just by saying that there is an existence of toxic doughnut communities that gave language for environmental justice researchers to then go research and have proof.


Abre’ Conner, director of Environmental and Climate Justice for the NAACP, on Kathleen Cleaver

Kathleen Cleaver in 1968
Kathleen Cleaver (Art Frisch/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images)

The Black Panther Party has inspired me to do the work using a civil rights lens that centers Black communities. There were ways in which they were thinking outside of the box and creatively, and when I think about environmental justice work, that is one of the most important tenets that is needed. 

  • More Black History Month coverage
    Three book covers: Toni Cade Bambara's
  • We asked lovers of Black literature to curate a Black resistance reading list. Here’s what they chose.
  • For Rissi Palmer, country music is a form of Black resistance
  • What Black History Month means to The 19th staff

Kathleen Cleaver is one of those individuals doing that work. She was one of the leading women of the Black Panther Party who was pushing them to also think about how the issues they cared about impact women and pushed them to be more intersectional in their work. She utilized her background as an organizer and as a lawyer to talk about how the laws need to be changed in order to help Black people achieve liberation and power and using legal strategies to achieve racial justice.

I have watched some of her speeches and interviews, and she would talk about her perspective, which was really about leading with community, really speaking truth to power and really thinking outside the box.

For me, I think about how we do our work in Jackson, [Mississippi], where, quite frankly, Black communities for so many years have had this level of disinvestment and a lot of states have been able to get away with it because they are banking on people not wanting to challenge the status quo. But we are willing to think creatively to come up with solutions that are actually going to help people as opposed to fitting into the same narrative they would like us to keep that disempower Black communities. 


Catherine Coleman Flowers, author and founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, on Sharon Lavigne

Sharon Lavigne (Courtesy of Goldman Environmental Prize)

Sharon has been a tireless advocate for environmental justice in St. James Parish, Louisiana, and throughout Cancer Alley [between New Orleans and Baton Rouge]. She has successfully fought the location of Formosa [a plastics company seeking to build a plastic and petrochemical plant] and other polluting plants to her community. She inspires others through her passion for environmental justice.

I became aware of Sharon and her work through reading about her efforts. I was introduced to her by retired [Army] General Russel Honoré when he took us on a visit through St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes. After meeting her she became and has remained one of my sheroes.

What stands out to me is her commitment. Sharon’s passion as an advocate for her community stands out. She is a Harriet Tubman of environmental justice. The fact that she’s extremely committed to her community, she’s a part of the community. She has fought these multinational corporations that want to locate [in] and pollute St. James Parish. 

She is a strong woman of faith. 

When Sharon’s home was damaged by Hurricane Ida, she put her energy into collecting supplies for residents of her community that suffered damage or losses. That is an example of her role as a nurturer. Like Fannie Lou Hamer, she has voiced the concerns of residents of Cancer Alley that are tired of being sacrificial lambs for an industry that … destroys the culture of the communities in which they are sited.


Rhiana Gunn-Wright, climate director at the Roosevelt Institute, on her many inspirations in the movement 

Portrait of Janelle Jones smiling
Janelle Jones (Courtesy of Janelle Jones)

Someone I look up to a lot is Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, who is the head of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. I learn so much from her perspective and her integrity and also her commitment to investing and raising up younger leaders. She has a really keen eye toward power and what it means to be in a relationship with powerful actors while also holding fast to what is necessary to make them move. That is really important because attention from powerful actors is really seductive, and I feel like she is really good at balancing those two things and encouraging people, especially Black women, to not get lost or lose sight of what they are really working for. 

I still remember the first time I met Colette Pichon Battle, now with Taproot Earth. I am just so awed by her vision, and her commitment to Black people, and to justice. I’ve learned a lot from her about the importance of process, too. I come from a background where in a lot of ways, the emphasis is on the outcome. I learned from Colette that obviously outcome matters, but the process, especially when you’re talking about equity, also matters a lot in terms of: Who’s at the table? Who’s getting to talk? Who are you actually consulting? 

She’s just taught me a lot about what it means to build trust and that if you’re talking about wanting to build a more equitable world, how that matters and why that matters. And what it looks like for that to pay off. 

Also, Janelle Jones, who was at the Department of Labor but is now at SEIU [Service Employees International Union]. She is a young Black woman economist and has taught me so much about economics and not being afraid to participate in economic discussions. Especially when I was really working hard on the Green New Deal, she helped me believe that I did understand economic policy and that my thoughts were valid even though I wasn’t a formally trained economist. She does that work for a lot of people and for Black people in particular. 

Of course, there are always the OGs like Dr. Beverly Wright and Dorceta Taylor, whose work and perseverance have 100 percent paved the way for folks like me.

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

Up Next

A National Guard directs traffic at a water distribution site at the Mississippi State Fairgrounds.

Environment & Climate

She grew up under water boil advisories in Jackson. Now she’s bringing environmental justice to the EPA.

In her community outreach role for the EPA, Rosemary Enobakhare is working to prioritize communities in need while “shining a light” on issues affecting them most.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram