Environmental racism is the pattern of placing polluting facilities, waste sites and other environmental hazards in communities of color, and of failing to protect those communities. The term was coined by civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis after protests in 1982 against a toxic PCB landfill in Warren County, North Carolina, a mostly Black county.
In 1987, the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, which Chavis led, published Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States. It found that race was the strongest predictor of where hazardous waste facilities were located. Sociologist Robert Bullard, often called the father of environmental justice, documented similar patterns in Houston and across the South. In 1994, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12898, requiring federal agencies to address environmental justice.
The pattern is visible today. In Louisiana, an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River lined with petrochemical plants is known as Cancer Alley; many of the communities there are majority Black. In April 2014, Flint, Michigan, a majority-Black city under state emergency management, switched its water source to the Flint River without proper corrosion treatment, exposing residents to lead. Formerly redlined neighborhoods also face more heat and air pollution, according to multiple studies.