GULF COAST KATRINA PROJECT

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RESOURCE CENTER
CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY
GULF COAST KATRINA PROJECT

HBCU EDUCATION AND OUTREACH COLLABORATIVE

The project built collaborations with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and the other universities, with special emphasis on working with the three New Orleans-based HBCUs that were directly affected by Katrina (Dillard University, Xavier University, and Southern University in New Orleans) and eleven other cities with HBCUs that contain 87 percent of Katrina evacuees. New Orleans is unique in that it is the only city in the United States, other than Atlanta and Nashville, that has three or more HBCUs. Atlanta has five and Nashville has three HBCUs.

This component of the project focused on supporting on-the-ground collaborations with HBCUs and community based organizations (CBOs) in selected “host” cities where Katrina evacuees are found to assist them better plan for and access jobs, business opportunities, housing, education, health, transportation, and related relocation-transition opportunities.

The Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University has a longstanding relationship with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard (formerly at Xavier University), a center in which we have several joint-funded projects such as the our NIEHS Minority Worker Training and Brownfields Training Program, set up temporary offices at Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA. It was only natural that the two EJ centers continue their collaborations after the devastating storm. Some of the activities performed under the one-year Katrina grant included:

The EJRC collaborated with the DSCEJ and its other partners to expand the network of local New Orleans and Gulf Coast community leaders, national leaders, scholars, authors, policy analysts, researchers, educators, health professionals, lawyers, economists, urban planners, architects, etc. to explore strategies for rebuilding community in the “new” New Orleans. This initiative includes technical assistance and support to grassroots groups and impacted communities that are struggling for environmental and economic justice. The project framed, translated, and incorporated EJ into the major black organizations and professional associations that deal with housing, education, jobs, economic & business development, wealth creations, transportation, health, environment, civil rights, etc.

The EJRC provided support and assistance in planning the DSCEJ’s “A Safe Way Back Home Survivors Forums” held in selected cities with large concentrations of Katrina evacuees. The EJRC worked in collaboration with the DSCEJ in mobilizing the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in cities with large concentrations of Katrina survivors. This was a natural fit since the EJRC at Clark Atlanta University and the DSCEJ (while at Xavier University, but now at Dillard University as of September 2005) were joint participants in a 17-member HBCU/MI Environmental Technology Consortium for more than a decade. The EJRC and DSCEJ have also been in partnership in operating an NIEHS-funded Minority Worker Training Program and Brownfields Worker Training Program for ten years.

New Orleans, LA. The EJRC worked with the DSCEJ in preparing resource materials, presentations, and community outreach for the New Orleans area Katrina Survivors meeting held in 2006.

Atlanta, GA. Atlanta had over 60,000 Katrina survivors at the time the meeting was held in July 19, 2006 at Clark Atlanta University. The EJRC was instrumental in outreach and support to this important gathering. See write-up at http://www.blacknews.com/pr/safewayhome101.html

Houston, TX. The EJRC used Dr. Robert D. Bullard’s longstanding affiliations in Houston and Texas Southern University (TSU) to assist the DSCEJ in planning the Houston Katrina Survivors meeting in August 10, 2006. Bullard has written two books on Houston and served as a sociology professor at TSU (a co-sponsor of the Houston meeting) for more than a decade. See write-up at http://www.neworleansnetwork.org/article.php?story=20060807131401211

Jackson, MS. The EJRC assisted the DSCEJ plan the Jackson meeting for Katrina survivors. The meeting was held at Jackson State University in September 2006.

The project collected, assembled, cataloged, and archived resource material on Katrina and race, environmental justice, livable communities, transportation, smart growth, equitable development, and regional equity. The website serves as a repository for bibliographies, curricula, and directory of resource groups and technical advisors. It will also serve as a major repository for multi-media (i.e., videos, audio tapes, documentary and educational films, photographs and slide exhibition, books, monographs, newsletters, and technical reports) on fair growth and regional equity. It will retrieve, compile, and disseminate research materials, abstracts, articles, press releases, media alerts, monographs, and proceedings.

Having the facts and resource material to act on proved to be important ingredients for victory in many past struggles for environmental justice and human rights. The case of Katrina is no different. Thus, the EJRC embarked on an aggressive Hurricane Katrina research, writing, and publication initiative that linked environmental justice, healthy and livable communities, transportation equity, smart growth, racialized place, regionalism, globalization, and human rights. The following represent a sample of the reports, articles, and monographs on Hurricane Katrina.

Robert D. Bullard, “Deadly Waiting Game: Addressing Environmental Health Disparities in Communities of Color,” in Marcheta Gillman, Steve Fischbach, Lynn Wolf, Nkiru Azikiwe, and Peter Tegeler, After Katrina: Rebuilding a Healthy New Orleans. Washington, DC: Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Alliance for Healthy Homes, Center for Social Inclusion, and the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, May 2007, http://www.prrac.org/pdf/rebuild_healthy_nola.pdf.

Robert D. Bullard, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, and Beverly Wright, Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007 Executive Summary (United Church of Christ), Chapter 6 “Wrong Complexion: Will the ‘Mother of All toxic Cleanups’ in New Orleans Be Fair?” released at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), San Francisco, CA, February 17, 2007. http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/TWARTFinal.htm

Bullard, Robert D. and Beverly Wright, “Cleaning Up Toxic ‘Time Bombs’ Left Behind by Katrina,” FOCUS Magazine Special Issue on Hurricane Katrina: Health Impacts in Louisiana, Joint Center for Political Studies, Vol. 34, No. 10 (January/February 2006), http://www.jointcenter.org/publications1/focus/FocusDetail.php?recordID=542.

Bullard, Robert D. “Assuring Environmental Justice for All.” Pp. 187-212 in Tavis Smiley’s Covenant with Black America. Los Angeles (January/February 2006), http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com/covenant/environmental_justice/. A major focus of Covenant IX examines the EJ and health disparities in pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans. The Covenant made the New York Times #1 Bestsellers List.

Bullard, Robert D. “Let Them Eat Dirt: Will the ‘Mother of All Toxic Cleanups’ Be Fair to All NOLA Neighborhoods, Even When Some Contamination Predates Katrina?” April 14, 2006, http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/Let_Them_Eat_Dirt.pdf.

Pastor, Manuel, Robert D. Bullard, James K. Boyce, Alice Fothergill, Rachel Morello-Frosch, and Beverly Wright, “Environment, Disaster, and Race After Katrina,” Race, Poverty & the Environment: A Journal for Social and Environmental Justice, 13, No. 1 (Summer 2006): 21-26. Available at http://urbanhabitat.org/node/501.

Bullard, Robert D., “Can Americans Trust the Government to Protect Them: Lessons from the World Trade Center Ground Zero and the Aftermath of Katrina,” Common Dreams News Center, September 11, 2006,
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0911-23.htm.

Bullard, Robert D. “EPA Gives New Orleans a Clean Bill of Health: Should Government Monitor or clean Up toxic Contamination?” September 7, 2006, http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/NOLACLEANHEALTH.htm.

Bullard, Robert D. and Beverly Wright, “The Real Looting: Katrina Exposes a Legacy of Discrimination and Opens the Door for 'Disaster Capitalism',” SeeingBlack.com, October 11, 2005, http://www.seeingblack.com/2005/x101105/411_oct05.shtml.

Bullard, Robert D. “More Blacks Overburdened with Dangerous Pollution: AP Study of EPA Risk Scores Confirms Two Decades of EJ Findings.” December 19, 2005. http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/BullardAPEJ.html

Bullard, Robert D. “All Transit is Not Created Equal.” Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Vol. 12, No.1 (Winter 2005/2006): 9-12, http://urbanhabitat.org/node/306.

Research is major component of the EJRC’s mission. The center’s research is guided by the needs identified by low-income and people of color community leaders. Among the research areas addressed at the EJRC include, public participation, community impact assessment, health disparities, children’s health, housing and urban revitalization, brownfields, waste management and toxics reduction, land use, redlining and urban disinvestments, transportation equity, emergency response and community preparedness, suburban sprawl, race and regionalism, smart growth and equitable development.

The project conducted a qualitative analysis of policies and practices in selected “host” cities and metropolitan regions to assess Katrina survivors’ access to public transportation, transportation alternatives, access to private automobiles, car ownership rates, and barriers to transportation.

The project has committed to prepare a paper on “Emergency Transportation and Disaster Preparedness” for the March/April 2007 Special Issue of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies FOCUS Magazine.

Bullard, Robert D. “Varido pelo furacao Katrina: reconstruindo uma “nova” Nova Orleans usando o quadro teorico da justice ambiental,” Pp. 126-147 in Selene Herculano and Tania Pacheco, Racismo Ambiental: I Seminario Brasileiro contra o Racismo Ambiental. Rio de Janeiro: Projeto Brasil Sustentave e Democratico, FASE, 2006. This book grew out of the Brazilian Seminar on Environmental Racism (BSER) held at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November, 28-30, 2005.

Robert D. Bullard, Paul Mohai, Robin Saha, and Beverly Wright, Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007 (United Church of Christ), Chapter 6 “Wrong Complexion: Will the ‘Mother of All Toxic Cleanups’ in New Orleans Be Fair?” full report released at the National Press club, Washington, DC, March 22, 2007, http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/TWARTFinal.htm

Under the leadership of Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright, the EJRC/DSCEJ collaborated with a nationally recognized team of experts to examine the environmental justice implications of Hurricane Katrina and disasters (natural and man-made) for the Russell Sage Foundation. The project resulted in the first report to systematically place environmental justice at the forefront in the Katrina disaster. The citation for the report is found at: Manuel Pastor, Robert D. Bullard, James K. Boyce, Alice Fothergill, Rachel Morella-Frosch, and Beverly Wright, In the Wake of the Storm: Enviornment, Disaster, and Race After Katrina. The Russell Sage Foundation (May 15, 2006), http://www.russellsage.org/news/060515.528528.

Robert D. Bullard, Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Enviornmental Justice, and Regional Equity (MIT Press, 2007). Chapter 8, “Blown Away by Katrina: Rebuilding A ‘New’ New Orleans,” written by Beverly Wright and Robert D. Bullard, is on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. See MIT Press catalog description at http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11185.

Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright, Race, Place and the Environment After Katrina: Looking Back to Look Forward (under development, submitted to MIT Press 2007).

The EJRC participated in an intense staff retreat in July 2006 with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University to plan the Race, Place and the Environment After Katrina: Looking Back to Look Forward Symposium held in New Orleans, October 19-21, 2006. The EJRC was a co-sponsor of the symposium and presented at the meeting, conducted research on experts who had produced reports and solicited speakers thru a “Call for Abstracts” for the event. The EJRC took the lead with the DSCEJ in soliciting invited authors in the commissioned paper series for the Katrina Symposium Book Project. It also took the lead in coordinating the web casting of the three-day Katrina Symposium.

The EJRC participated in planning the Environmental Justice Katrina Commission organized by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Robert D. Bullard served as a Guest Commission at the Commission’s hearing held on October 21, 2006 in New Orleans during the Race, Place and the Environment After Katrina: Looking Back to Look Forward Symposium held by the DSCEJ.

The project conducted four lecture series/forums at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) around the issues of race, smart growth, and government response to disasters. The “kick-off” lecture series/forum was held at Clark Atlanta University on February 9, 2006 as part of Black History Month); other forums were at Southern University in Baton Rouge in partnership with Dillard University and Xavier University (February 14), and Fisk University (February 20). The April 2006 forum held at Texas Southern University was held in conjunction with “university research week.”

The EJRC worked as a partner in the “A Safe Way Back Home” project hosted by Dillard University’s Deep South Center for Environmental Justice (DSCEJ) and the United Steelworkers (USW) Union, New Orleans, LA March 23-26, 2006, http://www.dscej.org/asafewayhome.htm.

National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA) Conference, African American Forum on Race and Regionalism Workshop, Fort Worth, TX, April 12, 2006.

Robert D. Bullard gave the Keynote luncheon address on April 20, “Environmental Injustice and Sustainability—New Challenges in a Post-Katrina World” at the Africana Institute of Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, NJ, April 20–22, 2006, http://www.ramapo.edu/news/pressreleases/2006/04_12_2006.html.

The EJRC organized a workshop at the Conference of Black Trade Unionists, CARAT Team Annual Conference, Orlando, FL, “Post Katrina Reconstruction,” May 31, 2006, Glenn Ford and Peter Gamble, “Cover Story: In Search of ‘Liberation Economics,” The Black Commentator, Issue # 186, June 1, 2006, http://www.blackcommentator.com/186/186_cover_black_labor.html.

The EJRC served on the planning committee and was a co-sponsor for the Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) along with the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Alliance for Healthy Homes “New Orleans Health Disparities Conference,” held in New Orleans, LA on June 12, 2006. Dr. Robert D. Bullard made presentation of his pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans Katrina environmental health disparities research, http://www.prrac.org/pdf/NOHDI-Agenda.pdf.

Robert D. Bullard presented his research “Race and Place Matters: Environmental Justice Implications of Hurricane Katrina,” at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Place Matters Labs Conference, June 28-30, 2006, Washington, DC.

Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright, “Anatomy of the Environmental and Economic Justice Movement Beyond Katrina: Grassroots Challenges to Globalization,” XVII World Congress of Sociology, RC24 Session at ISA World Congress 2006, International Sociological Association, July 23-28, 2006, Durban South Africa.

The EJRC was instrumental in outreach and support to planning the Katrina Survivors Forum in Atlanta, GA. Atlanta had over 60,000 Katrina survivors at the time the meeting was held in July 19, 2006 at Clark Atlanta University. See write-up at http://www.blacknews.com/pr/safewayhome101.html

The EJRC used Dr. Robert D. Bullard’s longstanding affiliations in Houston and Texas Southern University (TSU) to assist the DSCEJ in planning the Houston Katrina Survivors meeting in August 10, 2006. Bullard has written two books on Houston and served as a sociology professor at TSU (a co-sponsor of the Houston meeting) for more than a decade. See write-up at http://www.neworleansnetwork.org/article.php?story=20060807131401211

The EJRC participated in an intense staff retreat with the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University to plan the Race, Place and the Environment After Katrina: Looking Back to Look Forward Symposium held in New Orleans, October 19-21, 2006. The EJRC was a co-sponsor of the symposium and presented at the meeting, conducted research on experts who had produced reports and solicited speakers thru a “Call for Abstracts” for the event. The EJRC took the lead with the DSCEJ in soliciting invited authors in the commissioned paper series for the Katrina Book Project.

The EJRC also participated in planning the Environmental Justice Katrina Commission organized the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Robert D. Bullard served as a Guest Commission at the Commission’s hearing held during the DSCEJ’s Race, Place and the Environment After Katrina: Looking Back to Look Forward Symposium, October 21, 2006, New Orleans, LA.

Brownfields 2005 Conference, Robert D. Bullard served as a Plenary Keynote Speaker, Denver, CO, November 2-5, 2005.

One evaluation measure of the EJRC’s Katrina Initiative effectiveness is its “impact” effect as measured through extent that the staff and research are quoted and or cited in the media. Over the past year, the EJRC/DSCEJ collaborative has often become the “go-to” group on the issues related to Katrina and equity issues. The extensive citation of the EJRC’s Katrina work is one indicator of the center’s impact in the field. The following represents a sample of media and press coverage.

Gregory Dicum, “Justice in Time: Meet Robert Bullard – Father of the Environmental Justice Movement,” Grist Magazine, March 14, 2006 (an in-depth interview), http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/03/14/dicum/.

Gregory Dicum, “Here We Go Again: Robert Bullard Explains Why the Response to Katrina Wasn’t a Fluke,” Grist Magazine, March 14, 2006 (interview on the center’s research around emergency response and race), found at http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/03/14/dicum/index1.html.

Joe Gyan, “Project brings green to N.O. -- Joint initiative to help clean up, reach out to neighborhood,” The Advocate (Baton Rouge), March 24, 2006, http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/suburban/2516831.html. (Robert D. Bullard interviewed at Press Conference held by “A Safe Way Back Home” partners.

K. Broussard, “Research Week 2006,” TSU Times, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Spring 2006). Front page article features Dr. Robert D. Bullard’s April 2006 lecture where he addressed hundreds of students, faculty, and community leaders, http://www.tsu.edu/media/publications/TSUTIMESSPRING06.pdf.

Glenn Ford and Peter Gamble, “Cover Story: In Search of ‘Liberation Economics,” The Black Commentator, Issue # 186, June 1, 2006 (CBTU Conference presentation made by Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright on May 26, 2006 at Conference of Black Trade Unionists Annual Conference, Orlando, Florida, May 24-29, 2006), http://www.blackcommentator.com/186/186_cover_black_labor.html.

Interview with Robert D. Bullard, “Environmental Justice Professor, Robert Bullard “On How Race Affected the Federal Government’s Response to Katrina,” Democracy Now, Monday, October 24, 2005, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/24/1414234.

Pat Joseph, an interview with Robert D. Bullard, "Race and Poverty Are Out of the Closet: Hurricane Katrina Exposes the Wounds of Environmental Injustice,” Sierra Magazine (November-December 2005), http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200511/interview.asp.