Know Your Roots: Black History in Environmental Justice

The fight for environmental and climate justice has always been about more than pollution and policy – it’s always been about people. Decades of destructive decisions and systemic neglect have driven environmental racism, forcing certain communities to endure toxic waste, polluted air and water, and severe health impacts — all while fossil fuel interests take priority over human life.

Since the inception of this movement, numerous Black activists from Hazel M. Johnson to Jerome Foster II have committed their blood, sweat, and tears to organizing communities and leading protests across the nation to demand corporate and government accountability for environmental harm. Through their altruistic contributions, the world shifted its focus to include justice and equity in the fight for environmental rights.

There are four specific moments throughout the environmental justice timeline that stand out, transforming local resistance into a nationwide movement. These pivotal moments tell the story of how Black communities fearlessly fought and continue to radically fight for justice.

Memphis Sanitation Strike (1968)

The Memphis Sanitation Strike revealed the ugly, decades-long environmental struggles that Black people have had to endure.

Sanitation workers are the backbone of our communities, cleaning up waste while creating safe, healthy living spaces that are clean. But for many years, Black sanitation workers were routinely taken advantage of.

The final strike was ignited by Robert Walker and Echol Cole, two sanitation workers who tragically were crushed in an avoidable garbage truck accident, prompting 1,300 Black sanitation workers to go on strike beginning on February 11, 1968. The striking sanitation workers enacted sit-ins and even worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A day before his assassination on April 3, 1968, Dr. King delivered his Mountaintop speech to a crowd of striking sanitation workers and supporters. Days after Dr. King’s assassination on April 8, 1968, 42,000 people silently marched through Memphis honoring Dr. King and demanding the city meet the union’s requests. 

The Memphis Sanitation workers achieved victory and voted to end their strike on April 16, 1968.

The Warren County Protests (1982)

In 1982, the environmental justice moment found its voice in the small, majority-Black county of Warren, North Carolina. Black communities were targeted for years and had borne the disproportionate weight of environmental degradation with little or no role in the decision-making process.

North Carolina insidiously chose Warren County to be the dump site for more than 60,000 tons of toxic chemicals that cause cancer and other debilitating health defects. Even though safer options were offered, NC state officials pressed on with their scheme, deliberately disregarding the health and well-being of the residents who lived there. But in Warren County, the residents didn't accept the blatant disrespect and retaliated with all their might.

Hundreds of people protested by holding sit-ins, blocking trucks, and lying down in the roads to physically prevent the toxic waste from being dumped in their backyard. The protests went on for six weeks and more than 500 people were arrested.

Although the landfill was constructed in spite of the protests, the struggle in Warren County sparked incredible change. It galvanized a national discussion regarding race, pollution, and power and established the groundwork for the environmental justice movement as we know it today.

The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit (1991)

From October 24 to October 27, 1991, the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice hosted its First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, DC.

Over 1,100 delegates attended from all corners of the country. For the first time, frontline communities such as Black organizers, Indigenous activists, Latinx farmworkers, and Asian American leaders worked together as one unified group. Within four days, leaders strategized, built coalitions and drafted the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice, which guide environmental justice organizing to this day.  These principles made it clear that we protect our planet by centering communities - particularly those used as sacrifice zones.

"Cancer Alley" fight (Present)

Since the 1970s, Black communities in Louisiana’s "Cancer Alley" – an 85 mile stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge– have lived next to more than 150 petrochemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi River.

The pollution levels produce some of the highest cancer rates in the country, with some areas reporting 50 times more cases than the national average. Local residents have struggled to obtain clean air for decades. To add to the disrespect, in 2018, Formosa Plastics proposed a new petrochemical plant that would release more than 13 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution each year, which sparked local Black activists to take action. The planned massive petrochemical complex in St. James Parish, home to mostly Black residents, would further poison the air in the communities and raise cancer dangers.

Through protests, legal actions, and public awareness campaigns, frontline activists pushed President Biden's administration to start a federal investigation into environmental racism in Cancer Alley in 2021. However, this was halted in 2023, and frontline communities still fight against the expansion of toxic industries in their neighborhoods.

Leading the fight are The Descendants Project, an organization devoted to the healing and empowerment of Black descendant communities in Louisiana’s river parishes. Environmental racism, land dispossession, and the legacy of slavery are all seen as intertwined by the group, which advocates and educates to protect ancestral lands and demand justice.

Their efforts and the efforts of other advocates are a real reminder that the fight for clean air and environmental justice is also the fight for historical recognition and community restoration as well.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Black American communities have long served as frontline defenders for the environment, fighting for the basic right to breathe clean air and drink uncontaminated water.

Warren County’s residents, Louisiana residents, Memphis residents, and environmental advocates across the nation have organized their resistance into movements. They helped evolve and transform the concept of environmental justice. They achieved this legacy through collective power, resilience, and their steadfast conviction that we as people deserve the basic human right to reject living next to landfills and drinking poisoned water.

But despite all the struggle, blood, sweat, and tears, the fight continues.

History has shown us time and time again that whenever we unite, we achieve victory. We need to continue to show up, speak out, and keep pushing forward. We must support and uplift organizations led by Black activists, especially those who work on environmental justice issues.

Our country needs to do better at identifying environmental racism and be brave enough to expose it publicly. The people must continue to demand political measures that place human well-being above financial gain. Future generations depend on us to expand upon the strong foundation that our ancestors established.

We have always been the movement. We have always been and will always be the change we want to see in the world.