On April 19, 2004, Margie Eugene Richard made history by becoming the first African American to win the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, the award begun in 1990. The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world's largest award for grassroots environmentalism and carries a cash award of $125,000 for each winner. The awards ceremony, attended by 3,000 guests, was presented in San Francisco.

Margie is a retired schoolteacher, a grandmother, and an ardent environmental justice activist from the tiny African American Diamond community in Norco, Louisiana. She follows in the footsteps of other black leaders who refused to give in to racial injustice. Many of her Diamond community neighbors can trace their roots to descendents of African slaves who assembled small parcels of land from the old Diamond Plantation and passed it on to subsequent generations. It is ironic that the Diamond community and several other black communities along River Road were able to survive the early years after slavery and the Jim Crow era, but could not survive the toxic assault of the modern petrochemical industry. She grew up in a home that was just 25 feet away from the property line of the 15-acre Shell chemical plant when it expanded in 1955. The Diamond community is sandwiched between the Shell Oil plant and the Shell/Motiva refinery.

Margie knows toxic racism up close and personal. It is not something she read about or saw on television. She has seen it first hand in Norco, in the oil-rich Niger Delta (Nigeria), and in Durban, South Africa. Margie has dedicated a good portion of her adult life fighting the chemical assault on her segregated black community. Diamond community residents live in constant fear of toxic spills, explosions, and routine pollutions from nearby chemical plants. It is a type of "toxic terror." In 1989, she founded Concerned Citizens of Norco (NORCO is an acronym for New Orleans Refinery Company) to address the pollution from the sprawling Royal Dutch Shell petrochemical plants. For years, she and her neighbors complained about the foul odors, noise, perpetual light, and flaring from the nearby refinery. And for more than a decade, Shell refused to buy out and relocate the Diamond residents.

Since 1992, Margie has worked with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) at Xaiver University of Louisiana (where she serves on its community advisory board). The DSCEJ staff (under the leadership of Dr. Beverly Wright) planned training workshops for the Diamond community residents and other impacted African American communities along the Louisiana's petrochemical corridor—also referred to as "Cancer Alley." In these workshops, Margie and her Diamond community neighbors learned how to use computers to track pollution, geographic information system (GIS) mapping, environmental laws and regulations, health assessments, permitting, and relocation processes.

Margie's work attracted other important African American environmental justice allies from across the United States, including Monique Harden from Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, Damu Smith from Greenpeace USA, and the relocation specialist Michael Lithcott Company. She helped plan the 2001 "Celebrities Tour of Cancer Alley" that brought national celebrities and leaders to Norco, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, actor Mike Farrell, poet Haki Madhubuti, civil rights leader Dr. Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, and U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA). The celebrity tour focused the national spotlight on the plight of the Diamond community.

Margie's outstanding work later attracted other outside resources and technical experts, including the Bucket Brigade, an innovative citizen air monitoring program, and the national media. In 2002, Margie was featured in Fenceline: A Company Town Divided, a moving one-hour PBS film shot on location in South Louisiana by renowned documentary filmmakers Slawomir Grunberg and Jane Greenberg. Her many accomplishments and "take no prisoner" battles waged against a mighty opponent are more than enough to fill a full-length Hollywood film. We are waiting to see Margie on the "big screen."

Margie is a founding member of the National Black Environmental Justice Network (NBEJN), begun in New Orleans in 1999. Representing her local organization, Concerned Citizens of Norco, and NBEJN, she took her struggle on the road to Congressional hearings in Washington, DC demanding environmental justice and equal protection under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She testified at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland—declaring environmental racism in Norco a human rights violation. She traveled thousands of miles to The Netherlands—home of the Royal Dutch Shell Company where she challenged the CEO of Shell to "do the right thing" for the Diamond residents. Again, she demanded just compensation and full relocation of her entire community.

Margie has been relentless. She carried her struggle to two United Nations summits: the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), convened in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002. After years of targeted action by Margie and her environmental justice allies (who grew in number and potency), Shell offered to relocate residents from two of the Diamond community's four streets. Margie stubbornly demanded justice for all of her community—not partial justice with some community residents left behind.

In June 2002, victory finally came when Shell agreed to a buyout that allowed residents to relocate from the chemical facilities, reduce emissions by 30 percent, and contribute $5 million to a community development fund. Margie's and the Diamond community's victory is a victory for the entire environmental justice movement. In October 2002, Margie's work was recognized by her environmental justice peers who saluted her with the Crowning Women of the EJ Movement Award given at the Second National People of Color Environmental Leadership, held in Washington, DC.

Margie Eugene Richard is our shero. All hats go off to our sister in the struggle.
See photos of Margie at the Goldman Environmental Prize awards ceremony click HERE.