MLK Legacy: Inauguration of An Organizer and Environmental Justice

Image Credit: Ernest Withers: Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike 1968


Martin Luther's King's last march was in support of garbage workers who were protesting terrible working conditions and unmitigated racism in Memphis. On the eve of Barack Obama's swearing in, and in light of his commitment to lead on the issue of environmental preservation and global warming, it seems that the redemption of the promise of justice is taking place on every level. From ending dehumanization of any person-which led to the garbage workers signs declaring "I Am A Man" above-to abolishing degradation of the environment, there is a lot of work to do. I believe Obama's deep strategy is to create a nation of justice organizers, a globe of organizers. It is the organizer's dream. We will soon see if this can be accomplished from the White House.

Source: Daily Kos.com

As we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and consider the effects Dr. King's work have had on the United States, I want to highlight an often overlooked aspect of that work, how Martin Luther King and the civil rights struggle have influenced American notions of environmental health and justice.

One of the many corrosive effects of racial segregation in the United States is the unequal exposure to wastes and hazardous substances faced by people of color in both urban and rual areas across the nation. Consciousness of environmental racism grew in the 1980s, after a variety of incidents (including the siting of hazardous waste sites in Houston and the 1982 protests of a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) dump in Warren County, North Carolina that marked the first time Americans had been arrested for protesting a landfill) became public. Parents worried about children getting sick. Cancer rates in affected areas skyrocketed. In the years after the federal government evacuated the neighborhoods surrounding the Love Canal chemical dump site in upstate New York, worries grew that more communities were affected. These worries were acute in African-American communities, where similar health complaints were not unusual..."more at headline.