Defining environmental justice: Race, movement and the civil rights legacy

Defining Environmental Justice: Race, Movement and the Civil Rights Legacy examines how three Southern environmental justice resource organizations define environmental justice. The dissertation question is based on the assumption that the environmental justice movement is an extension of the American civil rights movement of the 1950s--70s. If so, is the movement patterned after the assimilationist tradition or the reconstructionist tradition? Following theoretical and historical discussions of environmental justice theory and the history of the environmental justice movement, the dissertation examines three distinct environmental justice organizations: Southerners for Economic Justice in Raleigh, NC; the Southern Organizing Committee in Atlanta, GA; and the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark-Atlanta University. The methods utilized for research are structured interviews with key leaders of each organization, archival examination of internal reports and newsletters, and review of available published books and articles penned by these organizations' leaders. Each of these organizations, in varying degrees, provides evidence pointing to a reconstructionist ideology, thereby supporting the conclusion that these environmental justice organizations are descendents of the radical reconstructionist wing of the American Civil Rights movement. The implication is that the Environmental Justice movement is built on a broad base of social justice, whose justice claims will have to be met by our society in some way.