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Martin Luther King, Jr., Environmentalist
Posted by Hillary Rosner on February 2, 2006 - 3:49pm.
Next week is Martin Luther King Day, and while most people know King primarily for his civil rights legacy, King was also a pioneer of the environmental justice movement and dedicated to raising awareness of urban environmental issues.
Environmental justice links environmental issues and human rights. In a nutshell, it's the idea that everyone has the right to clean air, water, and other environmental goods, that people who are already marginalized – such as minorities and the poor – have a greater chance of being denied these rights (for instance, building power plants in low-income neighborhoods), and that this imbalance needs to be corrected.
Look for a Martin Luther King Day environmental justice event near you. In New Haven, Conn., for instance, the Yale Peabody Museum is hosting the lecture, “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Legacy of Environmental and Social Justice.” In NYC's Prospect Park, the Sierra Club and the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment are holding an environmental justice forum.
For more information on environmental justice, visit the Environmental Justice Foundation.
Photo credit: The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
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I’m a teacher at an inner city school and I’d like to learn more about King’s environmental activism. Do you recommend any books or web sites on this subject that I could use in my lesson planning?
Hello, Doris. I’m Josh, the editorial assistant here at LIME.
This book: _8_xs_ap_i5_xgl14/103-9273842-6121429?n=507846&s=books&v=glance...
seems to be pretty comprehensive, and it could be a great reference for you, but I’m not sure that it’d be a good read for the kids. (What ages are they?)
I would also recommend, aside from the Environmental Justice Foundation website (www.ejfoundation.org/), trying to contact Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon through the Yale Peabody Museum or the organizers of the events at Prospect Park.
Keep us posted on how your lesson goes!
That link looks broken on my computer.
The book is called “From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement,” and it’s by Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster.
“Power, Justice, and the Environment : A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement” by David Naguib Pellow (Editor) and Robert J. Brulle (Editor)
But I imagine that any biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., or collection of his speeches, will have something about environmental justice in it. Conversely, a history of the enviromental justice movement would have to mention Dr. King.