[Forty-two years ago, North Carolina discovered that a company in
the Northeast had dumped tons of polychlorinated biphenyls — PCBs,
very cancer-causing carcinogenic substance — along the highways of
North Carolina. ]
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BEN CHAVIS ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT  
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Ben Chavis
September 28, 2022
Facing South
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_ Forty-two years ago, North Carolina discovered that a company in
the Northeast had dumped tons of polychlorinated biphenyls — PCBs,
very cancer-causing carcinogenic substance — along the highways of
North Carolina. _

Nonviolent protests against toxic waste dumping in Warren County,
North Carolina, in 1982 gave birth to the environmental justice
movement. , Jenny Labalme

 

_On Sept. 15, Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. delivered the Robert R.
Wilson Distinguished Lecture
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at Duke University Chapel in Durham, North Carolina, part of a series
endowed by a gift made to Duke to showcase important topics in public
law. Chavis's talk commemorated the 40th anniversary of nonviolent
protests over dumping of soil contaminated with cancer-causing
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Warren County, North Carolina, a
predominantly Black and rural community along the Virginia border._

_Born in 1948 in nearby Oxford, Chavis worked as a youth coordinator
with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and served as an
assistant to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At the age of 23, Chavis
gained international attention as the leader of North Carolina's
Wilmington 10 [[link removed]]
— a group of civil rights activists who were wrongly convicted of
arson during protests over the slow pace of school integration. At the
time, Chavis was serving as a field officer for the United Church of
Christ Commission for Racial Justice (UCC-CRJ), which had dispatched
him to Wilmington. As the oldest of the protesters, most of whom were
local students, Chavis got the longest sentence: 34 years in state
prison. But the activists appealed, and in 1980 the 4th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals freed them, citing prosecutorial misconduct.
Authorities did not pursue a new trial, and in 2012 Gov. Beverly
Perdue issued pardons of innocence
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to all 10._

_At the time of his wrongful imprisonment, Chavis — who already held
a chemistry degree
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from UNC-Charlotte — had been pursuing a master's of divinity from
Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, D.C. He
arranged a transfer to Duke and convinced the state to move him to a
prison in nearby Hillsborough so he could continue his studies. In a
recent talk [[link removed]] to the Duke
Divinity School, Chavis described being bused to campus each day for
his two years of classwork. He graduated in 1980, the same year he was
freed from prison, and was ordained by the UCC._

_Two years later, the UCC sent Chavis to Warren County, where
residents were roiled by North Carolina's plans to dump some 60 tons
of PCB-contaminated soil in their midst. The waste had been scraped up
from roadsides across 14 counties in the state after a business
associate of a Raleigh electrical transformer company disposed of
31,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated oil by pouring it along more than
200 miles of highways; state officials then decided to dump the waste
in the rural community of Afton. The outraged residents laid down in
front of dump trucks in an effort to halt the scheme. Chavis, who was
among the more than 500 people arrested for taking part in the
nonviolent protests, has said it was in the Warren County jail that he
coined the term "environmental racism." The protesters ultimately lost
their fight against the dumping. But after years of controversies and
lawsuits, the state detoxified the contaminated soil at the site in
2003._

_Chavis went on to serve as executive director and CEO of the UCC-CRJ,
and it was under his leadership that organization issued its landmark
1987 report, "Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States."
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He also served as vice president of the National Council of Churches,
executive director and CEO of the NAACP, and national director of the
Million Man March organizing committee. Chavis wrote a nationally
syndicated newspaper column from 1985 to 1993 and today serves as
president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association,
which represents outlets that serve Black communities. Chavis was
recently honored
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with the President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award for
Community Service and Civil Rights in a ceremony at Morehouse College
in Atlanta._

_After delivering his lecture at Duke, Chavis was joined in the chapel
by Catherine Coleman Flowers, an Alabama environmental activist
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and recent MacArthur Foundation
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grant" award winner
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for a conversation about environmental justice. You can watch Rev.
Chavis's lecture and the talk that followed here
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that follows is of the speech as delivered. Nine days after the
lecture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael
Regan — another Black environmental advocate from Eastern North
Carolina — stood in front of the Warren County Courthouse and
recalled the 1982 protests as he unveiled
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his agency's new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil
Rights, which he said is "embedding environmental justice and civil
rights into the DNA of EPA." __— Sue SturgisB_

Thank you all very much. First and foremost, I want to thank God for
the opportunity to be back at my alma mater, Duke University. I want
to thank God for today's recognition of the 40th anniversary of the
beginning of the environmental justice movement, which really started
in terms of national exposure 40 years ago on this day in Warren
County, North Carolina. I want to thank the dean for her kind words of
introduction. I want to thank all of the various departments that
sponsored this lecture. I want to thank the dean of the chapel for
allowing us to be in this great cathedral.

Almost 50 years ago, I was here as a student, as a member of the
Wilmington 10. I'm not going to talk about the Wilmington 10 case
tonight; I really want to focus my time a lot on what led to the
Warren County situation, what led to the birthing of the environmental
justice movement, and where are we today, 40 years later in 2022, when
it comes to environmental justice, when it comes to climate justice.
And then I'll end my remarks about what I see for the future, in terms
of shaping the future for all of God's people. I'm very pleased that
after my remarks I'll be joined in a discussion with Catherine
Flowers, someone who has made an indelible imprint also and not only
the scholarship but the importance of grassroots communities having to
help determine how to improve the quality of life for the communities
in which we live.

Forty-two years ago, North Carolina discovered that a company in the
Northeast had dumped tons of polychlorinated biphenyls — PCBs, very
cancer-causing carcinogenic substance — along the highways of North
Carolina. So the state obviously removed the toxins from the highways.
But then it became a question of what to do with 60 tons or more of
these toxins.

Forty years ago, of the 100 counties in North Carolina, Warren County
was the most predominantly Black. Warren County was a rural,
agricultural county. Those of you who are natives of North Carolina
know that Warren County was also the place where Floyd McKissick
wanted to establish Soul City
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inspired by Floyd McKissick building Soul City I started a restaurant
in a disco in Oxford called The Soul Kitchen, and out of that business
I was able to finance the whole Eastern North Carolina civil rights
movement, in addition to being able to take care of my family. I see
some of my classmates out in the audience. I see some of my
professors.

The truth of the matter is, I'm certain that the state officials
including the governor knew that it wasn't appropriate to put tons of
toxins in a poor, rural, predominantly African American community that
got most of its water from wells. It's the last place you want to dig
a hole and dump tons of toxins, but that's what happened. And they
announced it, and they started to bring these trucks in September of
1982.

And while I'm given a lot of credit for what happened, I must give the
credit first to the women, to the children, one of whom was only 4
years old. A child got arrested by the state of North Carolina for
laying down in the road to block the trucks from dumping PCBs in
Warren County.

I spent most of the 1970s unjustly incarcerated, so by 1982 the last
thing I wanted to do is get arrested again in North Carolina. But my
church dispatched me — the United Church of Christ, Commission for
Racial Justice, wanted me to go to Warren County to help lead the
protests. My local home church is also in Warren County, Oak Level
United Church of Christ, so I was ready to go. And I was honored to
join the protests. And of course I've been arrested for many things in
terms of civil rights, but it was the first time — I'm probably the
only person in America that's been put in jail for driving too slow.
The State Patrol said that I was driving too slow around the road
leading to the protests.

But that night in the Warren County jail, I thought to myself not only
that this is wrong, but out of my civil rights background I said this
is an environmental wrong — that it's tantamount to environmental
racism. And I began to define the term as racial discrimination in
public policy making, as the deliberate targeting of people of color
communities for toxic waste and hazardous waste facilities, as the
exclusion of people of color from public policy making. Back in those
days, there were no, very few Black people or Latino people or Native
Americans or Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders in the Audubon
Society or the Sierra Club or the National Wildlife Federation. Even
Greenpeace didn't have many people of color.

But also it was deliberate targeting of these communities. Warren
County was deliberately targeted. And what we found out because over
500 people were arrested 40 years ago in one county — it brought
national attention. And because it brought national media attention we
discovered that what was going on in Warren County was not isolated.
The same thing was happening in Louisiana, same thing was happening in
Mississippi, same thing was happening in Arizona or New Mexico, same
thing was happening in other parts of our nation. So I was very
grateful that the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial
Justice put up some money so that we could do a study. Because Ronald
Reagan was president in the 1980s, but the EPA under Ronald Reagan was
in total denial of the existence of environmental racism. So we not
only had to allege racial discrimination, we had to prove it
statistically. So we ordered the first study — every ZIP code in
America. And in 1987 we published the report "Toxic Waste and Race in
the United States," which was a landmark study that is still
referenced today by the EPA. And then we had the first People of Color
Summit in 1991 in Washington, D.C.

I give you all these highlight points to say this: When you think
about how the environmental justice movement grew, it was first
through the courage, through the persistence, and to some sense
through the sacrifice of so many people in Warren County. And then
other communities joined together to build a movement.

C. T. Vivian out of the civil rights movement defined movement as
people moving. And we would encourage people in local communities that
were disproportionately exposed to these hazards to organize, to
mobilize, to move, to raise their voices, and to stand up, to speak
out, to say no to injustice. Theologically — and some of you have
heard me say this before — I always quote that verse from the
Psalms: "The Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." The Earth
does not belong to polluters. The Earth does not belong to people who
create these toxins. The Earth belongs to the Lord. And if the Earth
belongs to the Lord, that means we as human beings, also created by
God, we're supposed to be protecting the Earth, protecting the water,
protecting the land, protecting food, protecting the ground,
protecting the Earth.

And so I'm pleased to report to you that in 40 years we now not only
have a movement in North Carolina — we have a movement all over the
world. The environmental justice movement is a global movement. And
now with the call for climate justice, I see a convergence between
environmental justice and climate justice. But just let me say
parenthetically, the people who would deny environmental justice are
the same people who would deny people the right to vote, are the same
people who deny women their reproductive rights, the same people who
would deny that racism exists. And when I think of Gov. "Satanic Sis"
in Florida [laughter], these governors who deny reality and put public
policy in place that divides people, that denies reality — they need
to be challenged. But they have to be challenged by brothers and
sisters across these states, across America, not only to vote the
right people in office but to hold them accountable.

And that's why I'm pleased with this forum. I've been here for the
last several days here at Duke, and I'm looking forward to our
discussion. But I want to move now to what I believe is a possible
future.

Thank God for the progress that we've made in movement building around
environmental justice over the last 40 years. And as a result, we now
have people here at Duke and at other academic institutions studying,
getting undergraduate and graduate and postgraduate degrees in
environmental justice, in environmental engineering, in environmental
law, etc., etc. That's why I thank the Sanford School for Public
Policy — I would encourage all of the schools here at Duke,
including my Divinity School, to focus on this issue of climate
justice, environmental justice, and helping to shape a better future
for all of God's people.

I already know that we have arranged the first question. I believe
when we have the question and answer period it's going to come from
Brazil. It's going to be in Portuguese, but I know a little
Portuguese, I know what they're asking. The point is, the reason why
I'm allowing them to ask the first question — and I know this is
being live streamed all over the world — is because if the COVID-19
pandemic has taught us anything, not just in America but anything in
the world, is that our destinies are all mutually related. We just
can't have health care for ourselves in America and don't think about
health care for the rest of the people of the world. One of the most
terrible things that Donald Trump did when he was president was quit
the World Health Organization, or cancel out the Paris Treaty on
climate. Thank God those things have been re-engaged, but we lost four
critical years.

COVID showed us about all these pre-existing conditions in our
communities. And a lot of our communities were more devastatingly
fatal because of COVID because of the pre-existing health conditions.
Where did these pre-existing health conditions come from?
Disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards. In Harlem today,
in New York, 6% of all the children in Harlem have asthma. They're not
born with asthma — they get asthma because of poor air quality. So
we have work to do.

But I come today on this 40th anniversary as an optimist. I'm
encouraged because I see young people — young white people, young
Black people, young Latino people, young Pacific island and Asian
people, young Native American people — I see young people demanding
climate justice, not waiting for the politicians, and not even waiting
for the public policy makers. I think that's healthy. It reminds me of
when I was young joining the civil rights movement. And one of the
things I learned from working with Dr. King, it's not just good enough
to see an injustice, we've got to have the courage to challenge that
Injustice, to change that injustice. And we have nothing but
opportunity today. We should want clean air, clean water, good healthy
food for all people.

Today while we assemble here, our brothers and sisters in Jackson,
Mississippi, don't have clean water to drink. The governor of
Mississippi has received millions of dollars in infrastructure funds
but he won't give it to the city of Jackson to establish a new water
system. So we've got challenges. I know a lot of the progress we've
made in the last 40 years, but I also know that we have great
challenges ahead of us. But I believe that we're going to make further
progress. In fact, over the last few days I've been here at Duke I've
seen some young scholars who are fired up and ready to go. And that
gives me encouragement.

You know, I believe that our young people today need to be encouraged,
not discouraged. And I'm not talking about young people just here at
Duke. I'm talking about young people in the community, throughout this
Triangle era, throughout North Carolina, and throughout our nation. We
have to do a better job of not only encouraging them to excel in
school, and excel in their community, but give them a helping hand.

I believe we should learn from the past. We should learn from our
history, not necessarily repeat the past, or repeat the history.

On Nov. 8, democracy is on the ballot. On Nov. 8, environmental
justice is on the ballot. On Nov. 8, climate justice is on the ballot.
On Nov. 8, racial justice is on the ballot. On Nov. 8, the future of
North Carolina is on the ballot. And then some of these other primary
states are seen as low voter participation. And when you say, "Well,
what does voter participation have to do with climate or have to do
with environmental justice?" It has a lot to do with it, because some
of the biggest deniers of climate justice, the deniers of
environmental justice, are over there in the state legislature. We
need to vote them out of office, and we need to vote new people in
office. I'm going to say that again: We need to vote them out of
office, and we need to vote new people into office. That's our charge.
[Applause.]

And there are a lot of qualified people. But sometimes I think of
another thing I learned out of the civil rights movement: Sometimes,
my cousin Otis noticed, we wait for other people to do for us what God
wants us to do for ourselves. We all have a calling. And that's why I
believe that we have to strengthen our faith, strengthen our resolve,
find ways to build not only the coalitions but find ways to work
together.

The strongest movement for change is a movement that is diverse, that
is inclusive, but is also respectful of our diversity. If you look at
the audience here in this chapel tonight, we come from many different
places, from around the world, and that's a good thing. The people who
are watching by live stream, there's a lot of pain out there in our
communities, there's a lot of suffering. But I've come tonight to say
that that pain and that suffering is not a permanent circumstance. We
can make a difference. Because of the sacrifice that those brothers
and sisters made in Warren County 40 years ago, we now have a vibrant
movement all over the world. And people see the connection between
health and environment, the connection between health, environment,
and public policy, and that's a good thing. So I'm optimistic.

I'm looking at my watch — I know I'm right on time. I'm going to end
on this. If the Earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, which I
believe it is, then that means we have to have a movement that's full
of vitality, that's full of courageous brothers and sisters. That's
full. And when I say that, I'm not asking anybody to go to jail like
we went to jail. But sometimes you have to be willing to go to jail
for the right cause.

My point is simply this: The future is what we shape the future to be.
Future does not come by osmosis; it's how it's shaped. And there are
some people probably not in this congregation who are shaping a future
where they put profits over people. They're shaping a future that
divides people, that engenders racial hatred. Jan. 6 at the Capitol
— that's the tip of a very bad iceberg. That's a warning that there
are tendencies out here that were allowed to take our nation backwards
rather than take our nation forward.

And I believe, in closing, that there are more people of good will
than people of ill will.  I want us to be in the ranks of the people
of good will, who would do good work for the right cause. And for the
right cause is that we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with
our God — not just when it's popular, or not just when it's
advantageous, but every day of our life.

Thank God for the environmental justice movement. Thank God for the
Warren County struggle. Thank God for each one of you. We got work to
do. God bless you.

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