The environment doesn’t begin as you leave the city –
workplaces and neighborhoods are part of it, too. But battles to
protect these places, especially those belonging to minority
groups, have not often been visible to the
public.
The 2000 Directory of People of
Color Environmental Groups brings these community fights
to life, listing the causes and contact information of over 600
organizations in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Their battles range
from protecting Yakima Indian rights to hunt and fish in Washington
state to promoting alternative energy sources in Guanajuato,
Mexico. Several activists have written page-long articles about
their communities, like Rose Augustine of Tucson, Ariz., who has
fought to keep deadly trichloroethylene out of her barrio’s water
supply.
“This dispels the myths that people of
color are not concerned about the environment and that they don’t
have their own environmental organizations,” says Robert D.
Bullard, the founder of the Environmental Justice Resource Center
in Atlanta, Ga. Bullard put together the directory, now in its
third edition. He started compiling names of organizations in 1991,
because the groups needed a way to communicate among themselves to
form a larger voice in mainstream politics.
“We
have redefined the environment to include where we live, where we
work, where we go to school, and the concept of equity,” says
Bullard. “We wanted to get out and tell our stories, and it’s
worked.”
The 2000 Directory of People of
Color Environmental Groups can be requested from the
Communications Department of the C.S. Mott Foundation, 1200 Mott
Foundation Building, Flint, MI 48502-1851 (800/645-1766),
www.ejrc.cau.edu.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Beyond the white noise.
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