The environmental justice movement is one that has attracted national attention in recent years. What is at the core of this movement? What is environmental justice fighting for?
The American Public Health Association defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.”
Essentially, all people have the right to live under equal environmental protections and can include themselves in all activities corresponding to those rights. This concept is often associated with people of color being the primary inhabitants of America’s most polluted environments. These communities often disproportionately experience environmental threats, such as contaminated water or harsh pollution from a nearby plant, for example.
The national environmental justice movement is considered by many to have been initiated by a series of protests in Warren County, N.C., in the 1970s after the state’s government chose to store thousands of pounds of toxic soil in a predominantly black community. Ultimately, the Warren County community lost the legal fight for justice. However, they unknowingly jump-started a movement that continues to become more relevant through the decades as climate issues escalate.
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The environmental justice movement continued to progress nationally, becoming an important issue for the Democratic Party, especially in the early 1990s with the election of Bill Clinton. Since then, environmental justice has become more prominent in federal policy, like the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which aimed to allocate 40% of certain climate and environmental investments to disadvantaged communities.
At the 2022 State of the Union Address, President Biden promoted this initiative, saying, “We’ll create good jobs for millions of Americans…and we’ll do it all to withstand the devastating effects of climate change and promote environmental justice.”
In recent years, Wake Forest University has implemented this movement in its campus life through the creation of the Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative, with a goal to collaborate with people of all backgrounds to create a Science and Technology Studies curriculum that acknowledges the effects of race on discussions of our environmental practices, concerns and policies.
In April, Wake Forest held the 2025 Mellon Environmental Justice Summit with Reverend Benjamin Chavis. Reverend Chavis is a well-known civil rights and environmental justice activist, who even coined the term “environmental racism” and was present at the Warren County protests. At the summit, he celebrated the progress the movement has made since the 1970s, while still acknowledging there are remaining challenges.
At Wake Forest, students, faculty, and staff have the opportunity to carry forward this movement to ensure greater equity in our future communities through advocacy and daily choices that prioritize both sustainability and justice.