One universally shared human experience is living on planet Earth. Everyone is subject to the environment and the climate crisis that Earth is facing; however, different communities are and will not be affected in the same way. Historically, there have been environmental protections put in place for some areas, while other areas have had to survive with burdens, often man-made, put on communities by companies owned by people who do not live in those communities. Environmental justice is a fight that includes social, economic and racial issues.
Cities across the United States have people of diverse backgrounds, races, ages, income levels and cultural differences, but there still seems to be division. In the 1930s, a process called redlining prevented Blacks and other people of color from being able to get mortgages and buy homes in nice, suburban areas because of the idea that they would make the value of homes go down. Redlining and poor land-use planning has pushed minority groups into poor, urban communities. Areas of garbage sites, hazardous waste, industrial factories, highways and other causes of pollution have been built and developed in these poor and minority neighborhoods, while suburban neighborhoods have gotten the benefits of resources for community advancement.
Several of Delaware’s own environmental justice communities are in New Castle County, including Southbridge, Newport and Cedar Heights. Some of these higher poverty, predominantly Black neighborhoods are in areas prone to flooding, low lying and in close proximity to the Christiana River, as well as heavily industrialized with high-risk chemical facilities and hazardous waste sites. Residents become exposed to the risk of health issues like cancer and asthma along with major flooding, unlike nearby affluent and predominantly white neighborhoods.
Residents of overburdened communities have long been fighting for their neighborhoods to be protected against human-caused environmental threats. Community members would get together and demand to not be targeted because of where they live. At the time, these community efforts were individual and local, not as a part of a bigger or united fight. The environmental justice movement took off in the 1980s, when the NAACP and the residents of Warren County, North Carolina, organized to protest the plan to dump PCB-contaminated soil into a landfill in the community in 1982.
The nonviolent protest involved marching from the local church to the dumpsite and sit-ins. Many sat or laid on the road to stop trucks from bringing the soil to the landfill, despite threats to arrest protesters for disrupting the project; the protest was six weeks long and over 500 protesters were arrested and put onto jail buses with no air or open windows. Some protesters traveled from out of state to help Warren County fight for their home; those who were there say it was the first time people came to fight for a community that was not theirs.
Unfortunately, the protest was not able to stop them from dumping the soil into the landfill. However, residents used the time of protest to talk and eat together, and they comforted each other. They had conversations about their state government and registered community members to vote. Even though it may seem like the protest was unsuccessful, the residents of Warren County were able to get someone in office who listened and promised to clean the landfill. Though it took years to get the project started and finished, the contaminated soil has been cleared out of the dumpsite.
As the story of the Warren County protest caught the attention of those across the United States, other communities facing similar issues started working together on a bigger scale to demand their neighborhoods not be a target of environmental discrimination and were joined by others to help demand justice for them. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized the Warren County protest as the start of the environmental justice movement. The term “environmental justice” did not exist before the Warren County protest.
Even though the start of the environmental justice movement was identified and given a name in the 1980s, the fight against environmental discrimination goes back much further. While there is a push to make neighborhoods better and more resilient, remember the history of the environmental justice movement is rooted in Black history and the fight for civil rights. The fight to protect the planet includes the fight for social and racial justice, the chance for community development, making neighborhoods safe and a demand for equity and equality. Environmental justice is climate justice.
Jhaney Hamlett, a graduate of Delaware State University, is the communications and outreach coordinator of Delaware Nature Society.
