Environmental Justice Summit to feature civil rights leader

Civil rights activist Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. coined the term “environmental racism” while participating in a historic North Carolina protest that birthed a movement. He was one of 500 people arrested in Warren County for resisting the siting of a landfill holding soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a known carcinogen, that could leak into well water. Chavis will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming environmental justice summit at Wake Forest University.  

He spoke with WFDD's Abē Levine about the legacy of the first environmental justice protest and the ongoing need for research that validates public health inequities. 

Interview Highlights

On environmental racism: 

"I knew how dangerous polychlorinated biphenyls — that's PCB — I knew how dangerous these toxins were, and I thought it was unconscionable for the state of North Carolina to choose the most predominant Black county in the state and one of the poorest counties in the state, which is Warren County.

Even though we brought national attention to it, the state prevailed, eminent domain prevailed. But over 500 people were arrested, including myself, and while I was in the Warren County Jail, that's when I actually had a piece of paper and scribbled out the definition of environmental racism."

On birthing a movement: 

"The fact that there's a global environmental justice movement today all over the world is a result of one county; that's not a loss, that's a gain. And people now don't debate the issue of whether or not environmental racism exists, I think more people agree that it does exist. So I think that if you go talk to people, which I do frequently in Warren County today, they're very proud of what they did. People in Warren County would see what they did in 1982 as being victorious in terms of uniting a movement for change." 

On Wake Forest's role in the community: 

"And so part of what I'm going to do when I come to Wake Forest, I'm going to encourage, you know, the next generation of academic freedom fighters. ... But I'm also going to encourage that universities like Wake Forest have to also be concerned about what's happening in the communities around Wake Forest, in Forsyth County. It should be now a leading voice, a leading place to repair. Injustice has to be challenged. Injustice does not heal itself. People have to be willing to speak up, to stand up."