[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.
by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (
