By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
While federal policy is being rolled back on environmental justice concerns in the U.S., majority Black and underserved communities continue to feel the impact.
“Due to redlining and other tools of institutional racism, communities of color have historically served as dumping grounds – sacrifice zones – for pollution and other hazards,” said Chris Dobens, director of communications for WE ACT for Environmental Justice (WE ACT), a community organizing and advocacy group.
Dobens added that putting facilities that create harmful levels of pollution in certain neighborhoods over others is at the heart of environmental racism.
Despite this, several Black-led organizations are continuing their efforts to tackle environmental issues affecting Black communities via policy work and community education. Some of those groups include WE ACT in West Harlem, N.Y, and Green Scheme in Washington, D.C.
Dobens said extreme heat and energy affordability are among the top environmental justice concerns facing Black and low-income neighborhoods in Northern Manhattan, N.Y.
Climate change is causing temperatures to spike to dangerously high levels, leading to deadly consequences across the country. From 1999 to 2023, more than 21,000 heat-related deaths occurred in the United States, with mortality rates climbing sharply after 2016, according to the Center for American Progress.
According to the 2023 New York City Heat Related-Mortality Report, Black individuals in New York are two times more likely to die from heat stress than their White counterparts.
Dobens shared how WE ACT has taken several steps to address these concerns.
“We have co-authored reports on the Urban Heat Island effect and the importance of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which is federally funded and state administered,” he said. “We have installed solar panels on multi-family affordable housing as well as New York City Housing Authority developments. Because buildings are responsible for approximately 70 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in New York City, we helped pass a law ensuring that all new buildings built in the city will be all-electric. We passed a similar law at the state level.”
Serving communities in Northern Manhattan, including Central Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood, WE ACT works to address pollution in Black and Brown neighborhoods.
In 2020, New Jersey passed the nation’s first cumulative impacts law, and in 2022 WE ACT helped pass New York State’s stronger Environmental Justice Siting Law to ensure cumulative impacts are considered in permitting.
“WE ACT is now working on rulemaking to close loopholes and ensure polluters cannot avoid compliance, while also focusing on local and state strategies as federal protections weaken,” Dobens said. “Drawing inspiration from New Jersey and New York, we are helping states adopt cumulative impact legislation nationwide, with model bills created alongside Columbia Law School to address the environmental racism that has plagued communities of color for generations.”
Ronnie Webb, executive director of Green Scheme, said land access is one of the major issues facing Black Americans.
“Especially in the District of Columbia, real estate is so expensive that growing your own food is economically hard to sustain,” said Webb.
Webb said Black Americans are also heavily impacted by miseducation or misinformation about community health and the environment.
To address the issue directly, Green Scheme trains youth from elementary to high school in environmental health and community improvement.
“Our Code Green program…is our youth agricultural program that we run with the schools and youth development groups,” Webb said. “We also have a program called D.C. Water Watchers, which is a program where we take the kids out to explore D.C. waterways and how it connects to the Chesapeake Bay.”
Webb said Green Scheme partners with environmental experts, universities and agencies to enhance programs and expose D.C. youth to green careers.
Black-led environmental justice organizations like Green Scheme and WE ACT work daily across the U.S. to ensure Black Americans in underserved communities are not overlooked and that their health and environment do not worsen.