Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Environment”

Remembering Activist Hazel M. Johnson, the “Mother of Environmental Justice,” on #EarthDay

Remembering Activist Hazel M. Johnson, the “Mother of Environmental Justice,” on #EarthDay

By goodblacknews on April 22, 2022

[Photo: Hazel M. Johnson via peopleforcommunityrecovery.org]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today, GBN celebrates Hazel M. Johnson, the community activist who sought to clean up the “Toxic Doughnut” that encircled her community on the South Side of Chicago, and in the process became known as the “Mother of Environmental Justice.”

To read about Johnson, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, April 22nd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Known as the “Mother of Environmental Justice,” Hazel M. Johnson did not choose the path that lead her to her title, but rather was called to it when her husband died of cancer in 1969 and her world was turned upside down.

Soon after his passing, the widowed mother of seven learned from a local TV program that people who lived on the South Side of Chicago had the highest cancer rates in the city. Hazel was determined to find out why.

Johnson discovered that chemical companies, refineries, and steel mills nearby were shooting toxins into the air and dumping industrial waste into the local river, which locals fished in, making Altgeld Gardens where she lived a perfect storm of air, water and land contamination which Johnson herself would later call the “Toxic Doughnut.”

She also found out that Altgeld Gardens had a toxic past that went even deeper.

Originally established as a federal housing project for World War II African American veterans, Altgeld Gardens was built atop land that had been an industrial sludge dump for the Pullman Motor Company from 1863 until the early 20th century.

Altgeld Gardens, it turned out, had the highest concentration of hazardous waste sites in the entire nation.

Hazel Johnson went door-to-door collecting data from friends and neighbors and started calling city and state health departments to investigate the industrial pollution in her community.

In 1982, she founded an organization called People for Community Recovery to fight environmental racism at the grassroots level.

PCR, made up mainly of mothers and local residents who were volunteers, pushed for city and state officials to do epidemiological studies of Altgeld Gardens because before Hazel started pushing and organizing, no legislative mandate existed to address how industrial pollution was affecting the quality of life for low-income and minority communities.

Hazel and PCR also worked to get rid of the toxins in their physical living spaces and put pressure on the Chicago Housing Authority to remove asbestos from Altgeld Gardens.

Johnson was equally instrumental in convincing city health officials to test the drinking water at Maryland Manor, a South Side neighborhood dependent on well water. Hazel convinced city and state officials to meet her in Altgeld Gardens and she took them on a “toxic tour” so they could see the problems first-hand.

After this tour, tests were conducted in 1984, which revealed cyanide and toxins in the water, and that lead to the installation of new water and sewer lines.

#WomensHistoryMonth: Mary Lou Williams, Piano Prodigy and Jazz Music Legend (LISTEN)

#WomensHistoryMonth: Mary Lou Williams, Piano Prodigy and Jazz Music Legend (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 31, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

We close out #WomensHistoryMonth with Mary Lou Williams, one of the most talented and revered pianists, composers, and arrangers in jazz music history.

Williams, who grew up in Pittsburgh, was a self-taught musical prodigy who cited Lovie Austin, who we did a daily drop on yesterday, as her greatest influence.

Since 1996, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC has held an annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival – this year’s will be held in May. To hear our Drop on her, press play:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, still a little stuffed up, but here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, March 31st, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Born in 1910, composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams was a self-taught musical prodigy who cited Lovie Austin, who we did a daily drop on yesterday, as her greatest influence.

One of the first renowned female players, composers and arrangers in jazz, Williams was a working musician by the age of 15, and by 18 had joined the Andy Kirk Orchestra based out of Kansas City, Missouri.By the 1940s she had her own weekly radio show, Mary Lou Williams’s Piano Workshop, where she mentored Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

In 1945, Williams composed one of her most noted works, Zodiac Suite, which she said was inspired by the astrological signs of famous friends in the jazz world. “Aries” which you are hearing now, was inspired by Billie Holiday and Ben Webster.

[Excerpt from “Aries”]

After converting to Catholicism in the 1950s, Williams quit performing to aid musicians with addictions, even turning her home into a halfway house.

When she returned to music years later, Williams composed sacred works such as 1971’s acclaimed Mary Lou’s Mass and supported musicians in need by tithing her proceeds for the rest of her life.

Even with her self-imposed break, in her lifetime, Williams composed over 350 songs and recorded over 35 albums. Williams passed in 1981 and in 1983, Duke University established the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture.

And since 1996, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC has held an annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival. The next one will be held this May.

To learn more about Mary Lou Williams, check out the Mary Lou Williams Foundation webpage, read the 2020 biography Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams by Tammy L. Kernodle, 2001’s Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams by Linda Dahl, watch the 2015 documentary Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band, currently available on Showtime, listen to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” 2019 segment on her that includes interview audio of Williams, as well as NPR’s whole “Turning the Tables” series of features on Williams.

And if you really want to deep dive, like I know I do, you can listen to and read all seven tapes and transcripts of Mary Lou Williams’ interviews from the 1973 Jazz Oral History project where her archives are stored at Rutgers University.

And, of course, you can buy or stream her music on Apple Music or Spotify. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

Excerpts from “Aries” from Zodiac Suite and “Credo” (Instrumental) from Mary Lou’s Mass by Mary Lou Williams are included under fair use.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(paid links)

[Featured photo via marylouwilliams.foundation]

Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation Donates $15M to Black, POC, LGBTQ+ and Women-Led Nonprofits Focused on Environmental Justice

Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation Donates $15M to Black, POC, LGBTQ+ and Women-Led Nonprofits Focused on Environmental Justice

By goodblacknews on January 30, 2022

Music superstar and cosmetics entrepreneur Rihanna‘s Clara Lionel Foundation (CLF) recently committed $15 million to eighteen organizations working on climate change justice across the U.S. and Caribbean in partnership with #StartSmall, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey‘s philanthropic initiative.

The grants from the Barbados native’s foundation will support entities focused on and led by women, youth, Black, Indigenous, people of color and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Climate disasters, which are growing in frequency and intensity, do not impact all communities equally. Under-resourced countries, communities of color, and island nations are facing the brunt. To combat this inequity, funders like CLF are building partnerships with organizations, acknowledging their deep understanding of what is necessary to achieve climate justice in their own communities.

The announcement of this multi-million dollar donation comes barely two months after Rihanna was named a National Hero in Barbados. In the recent past, Ms. Fenty has donated $11 million to social justice organizations and gifted 4,000 tablets to youth in her native country to address the digital divide during the pandemic.

The entities supported by CLF’s latest philanthropic outlay are listed below:

Black Feminist Fund

Serving as the first global hub for Black feminist philanthropy and led by activists from across the African and Caribbean diaspora, the Black Feminist Fund (BFF) significantly increases the resources available to Black feminist movements globally, contributing to strengthening their sustainability and resilience and supporting Black women’s claim and access to resources, including land, food, water, shelter, work and income. 

Black Visions Collective

Black Visions Collective is a Black-led, Queer and Trans centering organization whose mission is to organize powerful, connected, Black communities and dismantle systems of violence. Black Visions Collective is led by the guiding belief that all Black people deserve autonomy, that safety is community-led, and we are in the right relationship within our ecosystems.

Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN)

CYEN is dedicated to improving the quality of life of Caribbean young people by facilitating their personal development and full involvement in environment and sustainable development. CYEN’s work spans addressing youth unemployment, enriching climate resiliency, water resource management, notably their “Stay Alive and Thrive” Climate Action campaign to raise public awareness about the urgent need to mitigate and adapt to climate change across the Caribbean and around the globe.

New York Artist Tanda Francis and Others Turn Plywood from Black Lives Matter Protests into Public Art

New York Artist Tanda Francis and Others Turn Plywood from Black Lives Matter Protests into Public Art

By goodblacknews on July 29, 2021

New York’s worthless studios, a not-for-profit space for artists, organized The Plywood Protection Project last summer in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, with the intention of making public art that paid tribute to the racial justice movement.

Tanda Francis, one of the five artists who worked on the project with worthless, used repurposed plywood from boarded-up storefronts to create a sculpture now on display in Queens called “RockIt Black.”

“Rockit Black” sculpture in Queens by Tanda Francis (photo via tandafrancis.com)

“To transform this plywood that was on the streets during the Black Lives Matter actual uprising is… amazing,” Francis told Reuters. “In my work, I actually use the color black and actually try to elevate it, kind of contrast to how it’s been sort of stigmatized in our culture.”

Behin Ha Design Studio erected their contribution called “Be Heard” in Thomas Paine Park in Lower Manhattan.

“Be Heard” by Behin Ha Design Studio in Thomas Paine Park, Manhattan (photo via worthless studios.org)

“New York City was covered in this plywood during COVID shutdowns and, you know, the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests,” said Neil Hamamoto, founder of worthless studios. “To me, it felt important to recycle the material because of its power and rhetoric.”

KaNSiteCurators and Caroline Mardok created “In Honor of Black Lives Matter,” which currently stand in Poe Park in The Bronx.

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Hazel M. Johnson, the “Mother of Environmental Justice”

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Hazel M. Johnson, the “Mother of Environmental Justice”

By goodblacknews on February 20, 2021

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

This is Hazel M. Johnson. A working-class woman and mother of seven who lived in the Chicago housing project Altgeld Gardens for most of her adult life.

Because of Johnson’s grassroots efforts to combat environmental racism, she is now known as the “Mother of Environmental Justice.” In 1979, a decade after her husband died of lung cancer, Johnson saw a TV report saying South Side of Chicago residents had the highest incidences of cancer in the city. Hazel became determined to find out why.

Hazel learned that not only did the steel mills, refineries and chemical companies nearby shoot toxins into the air and dump into the local river (which locals fished in) making Altgeld Gardens a perfect storm of contamination of air, water and land which Johnson herself would later call (and coin) “the Toxic Doughnut,” but that Altgeld Gardens was originally established as a federal housing project for World War II African American veterans.

(Hazel Johnson and the ‘Toxic Doughnut’ map. Credit: PCR0

It was built atop land that had been an industrial sludge dump for the Pullman Motor Company from 1863 until the early 20th century. Altgeld Gardens, it turned out, had the highest concentration of hazardous waste sites in the nation.

Johnson went door-to-door collecting data from neighbors and started calling city and state health departments to investigate industrial pollution in her community. In 1982 Hazel founded People for Community Recovery to fight environmental racism.

Hazel Johnson working with young community organizer Barack Obama to draw attention to
environmental issues in Altgeld Gardens in 1989 (source: PowerShift.org)

PCR, made up mainly of mothers and local residents who were volunteers, pushed for city and state officials to do epidemiological studies of Altgeld Gardens (there was no legislative mandate before Hazel Johnson’s activism that addressed how industrial pollution was affecting the quality of life for low-income and minority communities).

Hazel and PCR also put pressure on the Chicago Housing Authority to remove asbestos from Altgeld Gardens.

Johnson was equally instrumental in convincing city health officials to test drinking water at Maryland Manor, a South Side neighborhood dependent on well water. After tests conducted in 1984 revealed cyanide and toxins in the water (Hazel convinced city and state officials to meet her in Altgeld Gardens and took them on a “toxic tour” so they could see the problems first-hand), officials installed new water and sewer lines.

(WATCH) Lumberjack Robert Rising Creates Furniture out of Rescued Wood from Fallen Trees

By goodblacknews on November 19, 2019

“Robert Rising, known as “the black lumberjack,” creates furniture out of rescued wood from fallen trees. He also mentors young people of color who want to enter an industry that often boxes them out.”

Black Residents Of Mossville Win Hearing In Legal Battle Over Industrial Pollution

By goodblacknews on March 30, 2010
(industrial pollution image via wikipedia commons)

According to nola.com, African-American residents of Mossville, Louisiana, a community just west of Lake Charles, have won a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on charges that the U.S. government violated their rights to privacy and racial equality in not forcing local chemical plants to stop polluting.

To quote the article:

Mossville is adjacent to 14 chemical plants and refineries that release millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land and water each year, according to federal and state records.

Its residents have filed a variety of lawsuits and complaints against the plants and the Environmental Protection Agency in attempts to recover damages and reduce pollution, which includes cancer-causing dioxin and vinyl chloride.

Tests by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registery in 2007 found chemicals in residents’ body fat that were the same as chemicals emitted by some of the nearby industries.

Several of the companies and their predecessors have been involved in releases of chemicals that have eaten the paint off cars, killed bushes and trees in people’s front yards, and polluted adjacent waterways.

“We believe that environmental protection should not be based on the color of our skin,” said Dorothy Felix, a petitioner in the case and a vice president of Mossville Environmental Action Now. “Our government can and must do better to protect our human rights.”

To read more, go to: https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/black-residents-of-mossville-win-hearing-in-legal-battle-over-industrial-pollution/article_548a59ef-7724-5181-8c78-ea324648f933.html.

or: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/toxic.town.mossville.epa/index.html