Sociologists Honor Environmental Justice Scholar-Activist Robert D. Bullard

New York, NY, August 13, 2007 -- This past Saturday, the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Sociological Practice honored Clark Atlanta University sociology professor Robert D. Bullard with the William Foote Whyte Distinguished Career Award for his enormous contributions he has made to the founding, developing, and growing the environmental justice movement. The award was presented by Kristine J. Ajrouch, chair of the Sociological Practice Section, at the annual ASA meeting in New York City.

Bullard is widely regarded as the father of environmental justice. Bullard is currently the Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and founding director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University. He founded the EJRC after leaving the University of California, Riverside in 1994 where he served as a professor of sociology.

In March of this year, Bullard and his colleagues (Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, and Beverly Wright) co-authored Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007, a report that catapulted environmental justice and environmental racism back on the national radar. In July, he was featured in a CNN People You Should Know segment and later that month testified at the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health “Oversight of the EPA’s Environmental Justice Programs,” the first-ever Senate hearing on environmental justice.

For three decades, Bullard has distinguished himself as the nation’s leading educator, scholar, author, policy analysts, and activist on environmental justice, environmental racism, residential apartheid, urban land use, community reinvestment, climate justice, transportation equity, equitable development, and smart growth. He has written fourteen books, hundreds of articles, reports, and monographs, and testified, served as a witness, and provided technical assistance in dozens of civil rights and environmental justice lawsuits and hearings. His writings in the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s laid the foundation for much of the environmental justice research and the grassroots environmental justice movement in the United States.