Why the environment is a civil rights issue

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Last week during a panel discussion, William Ruckelshaus, the very first Administrator of the EPA and my predecessor 40 years ago, was asked about environmental justice at the time of EPA’s founding. He told us about meeting with the civil rights leaders of the day and hearing their concerns that the growing environmental movement would shift grassroots energy away from the civil rights movement.

Forty years later, we’ve come a long way. But there is still work to do.

I’ve often told the story of one of my staffers, who last year attended the convention of a leading organization focused on African-American issues. He mentioned to a senior leader of the organization that we should work together to expand the conversation on environmentalism and address the critical environmental challenges impacting black communities. The response he got was, “I can’t sell the environment to my members.” It’s time to be clear about this misconception that environmental issues are incompatible with civil rights issues. The truth is that environmental issues are civil rights issues.

For many, environmentalism is about sweeping vistas, wide open landscapes, endangered species, and babbling brooks. And, yes, the fight for a clean and healthy environment includes all of those things. But, it also includes the inner-city school yard and the rural community that cannot drink their local water. It includes legacies of pollution in the ground and the air – oftentimes accompanied by the age-old – and false – choice between good jobs and a healthy community.

Environmentalism is not a boutique issue, or the enclave of a privileged few who have the resources and time to talk about faraway issues. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s about an opportunity for a green job in the clean energy economy . It’s about every community receiving the same protections as others. It’s about the equality of opportunity that our civil rights leaders fought for – and continue to fight for today.

To that end, it is fitting this week to honor the legacy and life of an icon who gave so much to the civil rights struggle and, later in her life, the environmental movement: Dr. Dorothy I. Height.

Dr. Height was a civil rights icon, a counselor to presidents and other world leaders and a field marshal in the struggle for equality. It was my personal privilege to stand with Dr. Height on more than one occasion during this past year, as she explained why environmental equality and justice are natural extensions of the civil rights movement. From her work it was clear that Dr. Height believed that we confront environmental imperatives in social justice and civil rights issues throughout our country.

For example, we can talk about education and the need to rebuild our nation’s crumbling schools. But we must also talk about keeping our schools out of the shadow of polluters that make our kids sick, that make them miss day after day of class with asthma or other health problems. We must talk about pollution from some school buses that can poison our children before they set foot in a classroom.

We can talk about health care and the disproportionate burden low-income and minority communities face with chronic illnesses. But we must also talk about those who get sick more often because they live in neighborhoods where the air and water are polluted, and more often seek out emergency room treatment that drives up health care costs for everyone.

We can talk about economic development and empowerment in our communities. But we must also talk about the local environmental challenges that hold back economic growth. Poison in the ground means poison in the economy. A weak environment means a weak consumer base.

And unhealthy air means an unhealthy atmosphere for investments. But a clean, green healthy community is a better place to buy a home and raise a family, it’s more competitive in the race to attract new businesses, and it has the foundations it needs for prosperity.

This Earth Day marks forty years after the first Americans came together to demand cleaner air, cleaner communities and cleaner water. That fight continues in communities throughout our nation. It is fought by those who may not think of themselves as environmentalists, but simply see themselves as the new foot soldiers in the steady march for civil rights and environmental justice.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is one theGrio’s 100, read her profile here.