environmental justice

Tour calls attention to low-income communities of color facing environmental challenges

This week, environmental justice activists are travelling the country with the Environmental Justice For All Tour to call national attention to sites of ecological and public-health concern in the nation's poorest communities.

Stops include both major metropolitan and rural areas, most of which are communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately affected by toxic contamination in their air, water, and soil.

In San Jose, Calif., employees toil in carcinogen-laden factories. In Dickson, Tenn., waste from a nearby landfill seeps into a community's wells. And in Syracuse, N.Y., a woman stands up to a city government that would evict her in order build a sewage treatment facility.

The tour allows these folks to tell their stories, many of which are absent from the conversation of the mainstream environmental movement.

The tour is the result of the efforts of more than 70 environmental-justice groups around the nation. It includes three tour groups -- in the northeast, south, and west -- and is intended to provide social and political forums for citizens to tell their stories. Monday, Oct. 2, is meant to be a lobbying day in Washington, D.C., where the participants speak to representatives about what they have witnessed on the tour.

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