Thirteen is a Lucky Year for Environmental Justice Conference

Last month, the Sierra Club and the University of Memphis came together to host the 13^th annual Grassroots Community Conference -- the only environmental conference in Memphis that is open to all community members, free of charge. The Grassroots Community Conference covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from the dangers of chemical exposure to holistic city planning.

This year, the conference, titled “Community Health, Environmental Justice & Clean Energy,” featured keynote speaker Dr. Robert Bullard, Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University and known as “the father of environmental justice.” Perhaps due to the high-profile keynote, this year’s conference boasted the largest turnout yet,with 250 people attending from local colleges, religious groups, and neighborhoods.

Rita Harris of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice program (pictured above with Dr. Bullard and with Madeleine Taylor, Executive Director of the Memphis NAACP and recipient of the Dic Mochow Environmental Justice Award) spearheaded the Grassroots Community Conferences in 1999, recognizing that much of the discussion of environmental issues was inaccessible to members of the community who lacked basic information on the topics. It was time, as she recognized, to “bring people’s voices to the table” through education.

The conference allow community members to learn from experts, to get an introduction to environmental health hazards, and to obtain information on who to go to for help in case of chemical leaks. Their ultimate purpose, according to Ms. Harris, is to make sure the community is “empowered and educated to be politically active,” to encourage locals to act as “watchdogs” and not to leave all the decision-making in the hands of government officials.

Environmental justice is of vital importance in Memphis. Sometimes called the “Transport Hub of the South,” Memphis faces numerous sources of pollution, including industrial chemicals transported by train and barge, nearby nuclear waste warehouses and decontamination facilities, and many factories. Memphis ranks second in the country for asthma prevalence and severity. In recent years, extreme weather has also made itself felt in the city, with early freezes and blistering, unusually protracted heatwaves. And, despite the polluted water, some families still fish for food in the Mississippi.

Memphis’ demographics show that almost 27 percent of its population is at or below the poverty line, and 51 percent of its population is composed of people of color, mostly African Americans. People in disadvantaged groups are less likely to be able to adapt to to extreme weather or protect themselves from chemical spills, lacking health coverage, education, and second options. However, the conference is not geared solely towards one demographic, and attracts members of all income brackets and ethnic groups.

Including people of varied backgrounds in the environmental discourse is not an option, it is a necessity. And Memphis’ Grassroots Community Conference is an excellent example of how to open the doors to activism to a larger section of the community.

“Our audience is genuinely representative of our local area,” says Harris. “We all live here together and we all need to be active in protecting our environment.”

Amen to that.