The Michigan Environmental Justice (EJ) Summit 2020, hosted by SEAS in February on the U-M campus, commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of the Michigan Conference on Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards. The 1990 conference was the first to bring academics, activists, and policymakers together to discuss the implications of mounting evidence of disproportionate environmental burdens in poor and people-of-color communities.

The 2020 event provided an opportunity to take stock of what has happened in the last thirty years and to celebrate the EJ movement’s successes. It also provided a forum to gain the insights, assessments, and advice of some of the EJ movement’s most important founders and leaders. During the Community EJ Leaders and National EJ Leaders Panels, these leaders explained what brought them to the movement and the people who inspired them. They highlighted the challenges they faced, as well as their most important accomplishments, and how the movement has evolved.

The success—and significance—of the Michigan EJ Summit 2020 inspired four recently published articles. For a limited time (until January 14, 2021), the collection of those four articles will be available for free. 

“I am hoping this collection will be seen as a unique and valuable resource for those interested in better understanding the environmental justice movement and gaining the insights of some of its most prominent leaders,” says Dr. Paul Mohai, the SEAS professor who co-organized the 1990 event with Professor Emeritus Bunyan Bryant. Mohai also served as moderator at this year’s EJ Summit.

Read the recently published articles below:

Thirty Years Working for Environmental Justice: Commemorating the 1990 Michigan Conference on Race and the Environment and Looking Toward the Future 
by Paul Mohai and Bunyan Bryant
https://doi.org/10.1177/1048291120961342

The Rocks and Stones Themselves…
by Michel Gelobter 
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1048291120959652

Commemorating, Celebrating, and Rededicating to the Fight for Environmental Justice: National Environmental Justice Game Changers
by Paul Mohai, Bunyan Bryant, and Craig Slatin
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1048291120962147

“I Didn't Choose This. It Chose Me.” Community-Based Environmental Justice Leaders
by Paul Mohai, Bunyan Bryant, and Craig Slatin
https://doi.org/10.1177/1048291120961510