Social Justice Activism

statistically for effects of race and ethnicity, while controlling for income and other
factors, suggest racial gaps in exposure that persist across all bands of income.
African-Americans are affected by a variety of Environmental Justice issues. One
notorious example is the "Cancer Alley" region of Louisiana. This 85-mile stretch of the
Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is home to 125 companies
that produce one quarter of the petrochemical products manufactured in the United
States. The United States Commission on Civil Rights has concluded that the African-
American community has been disproportionately affected by Cancer Alley as a result
of Louisiana's current state and local permit system for hazardous facilities, as well as
their low socio-economic status and limited political influence. Another incidence of
long-term environmental injustice occurred in the "West Grove" community of Miami,
Florida. From 1925 to 1970, the predominately poor, African American residents of the
"West Grove" endured the negative effects of exposure to carcinogenic emissions and
toxic waste discharge from a large trash incinerator called Old Smokey. Despite official
acknowledgement as a public nuisance, the incinerator project was expanded in 1961. It
was not until the surrounding, predominantly white neighborhoods began to experience
the negative impacts from Old Smokey that the legal battle began to close the
incinerator.
Indigenous groups are often the victims of environmental injustices. Native Americans
have suffered abuses related to uranium mining in the American West. Churchrock,
New Mexico, in Navajo territory was home to the longest continuous uranium mining in
any Navajo land. From 1954 until 1968, the tribe leased land to mining companies who
did not obtain consent from Navajo families or report any consequences of their
activities. Not only did the miners significantly deplete the limited water supply, but they
also contaminated what was left of the Navajo water supply with uranium. Kerr-McGee
and United Nuclear Corporation, the two largest mining companies, argued that the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act did not apply to them, and maintained that Native
American land is not subject to environmental protections. The courts did not force them
to comply with US clean water regulations until 1980.
The most common example of environmental injustice among Latinos is the exposure to
pesticides faced by farmworkers. After DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbon
pesticides were banned in the United States in 1972, farmers began using more acutely
toxic organophosphate pesticides such as parathion. A large portion of farmworkers in
the US are working as undocumented immigrants, and as a result of their political
disadvantage, are not able to protest against regular exposure to pesticides or benefit
from the protections of Federal laws. Exposure to chemical pesticides in the cotton
industry also affects farmers in India and Uzbekistan. Banned throughout much of the
rest of the world because of the potential threat to human health and the natural
environment, Endosulfan is a highly toxic chemical, the safe use of which cannot be
guaranteed in the many developing countries it is used in. Endosulfan, like DDT, is an
organochlorine and persists in the environment long after it has killed the target pests,
leaving a deadly legacy for people and wildlife.
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