Legal Aid of North Carolina is pleased to announce new educational materials relating to Environmental Justice:
A Brief Legal History of the Environmental Justice Movement in North Carolina
North Carolina has long been recognized as the birthplace of the Environmental Justice movement, and the origin of the term “environmental racism” from the struggle against the dumping of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Warren County, NC.
Disaster recovery efforts are of particular importance to environmental justice initiatives. As we’ve seen in the past few years with Hurricanes Matthew and Florence devastating already strained infrastructure in Eastern North Carolina and Tropical Storm Fred as well as the recent devastating effects of Tropical Storm Helene in Western North Carolina, the protections of the Fair Housing Act are incredibly important in both mitigation and recovery efforts. Too often, disaster mitigation and recovery efforts do not consider the systemic inequalities that have led to certain communities being more devastated by natural disasters and having a more difficult time recovering than other communities.