Recently featured on AlterNet.org, Jeremy Orr, the Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) Chair for the NAACP Michigan State Area Conference, wrote an op-ed that discussed how he and other ECJ leaders are growing Dr. King’s work for environmental justice in the African American community.
Orr discussed the importance of his ECJ work in the Detroit area and how environmental injustice disproportionately impacts the health of the African American and low-income communities in Michigan (and beyond).
“As a Detroit native, I know all too well the harms caused when elected and appointed officials at all levels of government neglect the environmental issues that impact vulnerable communities,” Orr explained. “In my community, people color and low- to moderate-income neighborhoods suffer higher rates of respiratory diseases like asthma because trash incinerators and oil refineries are permitted to pollute the air that we breathe.”
He also uplifted the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program and their recent energy justice campaign, Power to the People: Fueling the Revolution for Energy Justice, of which he helped to name.
Read Jeremy Orr’s full op-ed:
How MLK Inspires Today’s Battle to Provide Clean Air, Water and Energy to Poor Communities of Color
