Introduction
Racial minorities are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards including, toxic waste, fossil fuel storage sites, transportation sites, industrial facilities, air, and light pollution, illegal dumping, and toxic runoff in nearby waterways. Research shows that minorities are disproportionately exposed to pollution through siting practices that maintain and differentiate between socioeconomic factors including race and income.
Village Euclid vs. Ambler Realty Co.
One of the earliest and most impactful events relating to environmental justice and land-use policy was the 1926 zoning case of Village Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. The case emerged following a real estate firm’s attempt to develop land for industrial use. The town of Euclid passed zoning restrictions to limit the land’s development, which prompted Ambler Realty to sue the town on the grounds that the new zoning provisions constituted an overreach of the town’s policing power and jurisdiction over private property. Many of the town’s middle-class homeowners harbored concerns that the construction of industrial developments on Ambler Realty’s land would attract lower-income people of color to their community to work in the factories. The Supreme Court sided with Euclid and its residents. This ruling is representative of countless examples in which zoning laws have been used to exclude people of color from wealthy white suburbs.
Memphis Sanitation Strike
As the Civil Rights movement began to blossom in the 1960s, so too did concerns over environmental racism. In 1968, garbage workers in Memphis, Tennessee went on strike to protest unfair pay and poor working conditions. This protest, known as the Memphis Sanitation Strike, was the first time Black people in America mobilized as a national group to fight against environmental racism.
Warren Country sit-in and Aftermath
In 1982, awareness about the importance of understanding race-based disparities in the environmental justice movement was further galvanized by the Warren County sit-in. The protest emerged in response to the proposed siting of a toxic waste landfill in Warren County, a small Black community in North Carolina. The protest consisted of a large non-violent sit-in during which over 500 activists were arrested. Although the protest failed to stop the development of the landfill, it did produce a significant response. The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted a study in 1983 following the sit-in which provided significant empirical evidence that landfills and other hazardous land uses were disproportionately located in poor Black communities. The study used data from the 1980 Census which showed that three out of four hazardous waste landfills were located in areas where the population was at least a quarter Black and living below the poverty line.
In 1987 a study was published by the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ (UCC). The study, “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States,” concluded that race was the most significant factor in determining the location of hazardous waste sites, even more so than socioeconomic status.
Towards the end of the 20th century, the Environmental Justice movement began to pick up steam. The first National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was held in 1991, and the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) was established in 1992, among other federal and regional working groups focused on addressing issues of environmental injustice. In addition, further environmental justice-focused policy was passed, beginning with President Clinton’s executive order addressing the disproportionate negative environmental impacts on minority and low-income communities.
For more information on environmental justice, read ACE’s Environmental Justice Issue Paper by Clarisse Goetzen
