“Environmental justice embraces the principle that all people and communities have a right to equal protection and equal enforcement of environmental laws and regulations.” — Dr. Robert Bullard, Distinguished Professor of Environmental and Urban Planning Policy at Texas Southern University

To achieve environmental justice, all people — regardless of ethnicity, color or national origin — must have:

• Equal protection from environmental and health hazards
• Equal access to the decision and policy-making process, allowing them a say in the health of the environment in which they live, learn and work.

Environmental Racism — A Definition

Dr. Ben Chavis, a pioneer of the post-modern environmental justice movement, coined the term environmental racism and defined it as “racial discrimination in environmental policy making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of color from leadership of the ecology movements.”