You might think of environmental justice as an old concept , old as the environmental movement itself .
Surely , you say , the father of environmental justice is long gone , his lessons passed down through generations , his legacy enshrined in the marbled annals of history .
But you ’ d be wrong . Robert Bullard is very much alive and active . In fact , he was just in the city .
Bullard is a distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University and director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice .
The sociologist ’ s intellect , fervor , comedic timing and thirst for justice are as strong now ( if not stronger ) as they were in the late 1970s .
Back then , Bullard ’ s wife — a lawyer — asked him to conduct research for a lawsuit she filed trying to block a landfill near a mostly Black neighborhood in Houston . He found that all landfills owned by the city and three-quarters of private landfills and municipal incinerators were in Black neighborhoods .
Houston disposed of the vast majority of its waste in Black neighborhoods , despite the demographic making up only a quarter of the city ’ s population . Those facilities brought with them health hazards , pollution , lower property values and more .
“ We lost that court case ,” he said during the event , put on by the University of Washington ’ s Center for Environmental Politics . “ But a movement was born .”
And he ’ s going to keep fighting . Even before he walked on stage at Town Hall , he had to argue the points he ’ s been making for nearly five decades . But he ’ ll keep after it .
“ The first four letters of my name are what ?” he said . “ Bull . I won ’ t take it .” What is environmental justice ? America is segregated and so is its pollution , Bullard said .
That pretty much sums up the basis for environmental justice and the 17 principles that now define the movement .