Robert Bullard Says 2024 Is the Year of Environmental Justice

"“If we plan for environmental standards that would protect children, the most vulnerable in our society, we protect everybody. When we place the most vulnerable at risk, we place everybody at risk.”"

"Back in 1979, Robert Bullard was a freshly minted Ph.D. sociologist at Texas Southern University, researching segregated residential housing.

One day, his then-wife Linda McKeever Bullard came home to announce she had sued the state of Texas, Harris County and the City of Houston. Her case cited civil rights laws to fight the siting of a municipal waste dump in the middle of a predominantly Black middle-class neighborhood.

To back up her case, Professor Bullard used his skills with mapping and zip codes to document that all five city dumps and six out of eight trash incinerators were located in Black communities, even though only 25 percent of Houston’s population was Black."

Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth, February 24, 2024.

Source: Living on Earth, 02/26/2024