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Halting, Heroic, Hopeful: Today and Tomorrow in the Environmental Justice Movement
Unformatted Document Text:  Halting, Heroic, Hopeful: Today and Tomorrow in the Environmental Justice Movement Members of communities from all over the United States gathered in the gracious American Friends Service Committee townhouse on DuPont Circle on a beautiful fall day in October of 2002. Delegates to the Second National People of Color Environmental Justice Summit, these environmental justice activists organized a press conference on the impact of nuclear and chemical weapons on communities of color. A prayer by a Native tribal leader set the stage for what was to follow, which was a series of emotional testimonials by members of environmental justice groups about the effects of nuclear waste and production on their communities. Amid claims that the United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy are complicit in the poisoning of communities of color with nuclear waste were tearful and angry recitations of illness, death, unemployment, and despair among these communities. A Native American woman from Washington State spoke: “bioterrorism is nothing new—[it has been going on] from the time the smallpox blankets were handed out.” A handout distributed during the press conference stated that the United States government “disproportionately locates the nation’s most hazardous nuclear and chemical weapons production, storage, testing, and waste disposal facilities in Black, Latino, and Native communities across the country.” 1 Leading spokespersons at this press conference articulated a rights framework as they contested their community’s lack of access to clean air, water, and land. The claim that the United States denies this right to citizens of color recalls the language, and emotional power, of the civil rights movement. However, unlike the civil rights movement, there was no national media present to hear these claims. Many of us who came of age in the 1960s, fueled by the passion for social justice, wonder if the promise of economic gains shared by everyone quelled this passion. The great movements of the 20 th century—the Labor Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and the Anti- 1

Authors: Simpson, Andrea Y..
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Halting, Heroic, Hopeful: Today and Tomorrow in the Environmental Justice Movement
Members of communities from all over the United States gathered in the gracious
American Friends Service Committee townhouse on DuPont Circle on a beautiful fall day in
October of 2002. Delegates to the Second National People of Color Environmental Justice
Summit, these environmental justice activists organized a press conference on the impact of
nuclear and chemical weapons on communities of color. A prayer by a Native tribal leader set
the stage for what was to follow, which was a series of emotional testimonials by members of
environmental justice groups about the effects of nuclear waste and production on their
communities. Amid claims that the United States Department of Defense and Department of
Energy are complicit in the poisoning of communities of color with nuclear waste were tearful
and angry recitations of illness, death, unemployment, and despair among these communities. A
Native American woman from Washington State spoke: “bioterrorism is nothing new—[it has
been going on] from the time the smallpox blankets were handed out.” A handout distributed
during the press conference stated that the United States government “disproportionately locates
the nation’s most hazardous nuclear and chemical weapons production, storage, testing, and
waste disposal facilities in Black, Latino, and Native communities across the country.”
1
Leading spokespersons at this press conference articulated a rights framework as they contested
their community’s lack of access to clean air, water, and land. The claim that the United States
denies this right to citizens of color recalls the language, and emotional power, of the civil rights
movement. However, unlike the civil rights movement, there was no national media present to
hear these claims.
Many of us who came of age in the 1960s, fueled by the passion for social justice,
wonder if the promise of economic gains shared by everyone quelled this passion. The great
movements of the 20
th
century—the Labor Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and the Anti-
1


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