2024 Nancy Weiser Ignatius Lecture on the Environment Recap
On April 23rd, American University and SIS hosted Peggy Shepard as the speaker for the 2024 Nancy Weiser Ignatius Lecture on the Environment. Co-founder and Executive Director of WEACT (West Harlem Environmental Action), Peggy Shepard gave a historical overview of the founding of the organization and her ongoing involvement in local and national environmental justice activism and policy. She started with two pieces of iconic history. First, in the late 1980s, the predominantly Black and Latinx community of West Harlem started mobilizing around the harmful effects of the North River Sewage Plant in their neighborhood. The plant was emitting formaldehyde, a colorless, flammable, strong-smelling chemical that has been linked with cancer, asthma, and other health challenges. In 1988 WE ACT sued the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and settled for $1.1 million. They also committed then-New York City mayor to improving sewage treatment technology throughout the city. Early in the struggle, Shepard and her colleagues, known as the “Sewage Seven”, used direct action methods, including stopping traffic on a busy street to protest the sewage plant. Second, Shepard mobilized her community to contest the placement of diesel bus depots in the northern Manhattan area. Six out of seven of New York City’s bus depots were located in northern Manhattan, showing a clear pattern of environmental racism and institutional racism. Shepard used these two stories to launch into a larger discussion about the environmental justice movement, which was kickstarted in 1980s and 1990s through people of color recognizing their shared experience of being treated as “dumping grounds” for toxics and wastes due to a long legacy of structural racism in the country. Shepard also talked about contemporary efforts to help low-income residents move from polluting gas stoves to electric stoves.
The question and answer session with Professor Malini Ranganathan touched on a range of topics, from WEACT’s strategies of working both “inside” and “outside” the system, to the importance of intersectional activism, particularly among the youth, to the Biden administration’s new Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates funding both for green energy as well as fossil fuel businesses. The conversation ended with Shepard reflecting on the continued relevance of the 1991 Environmental Justice Principles drawn up at the first People of Color Environmental Justice Summit in Washington, DC. Those principles lay out guidelines for a comprehensive environmental justice movement, including standing against genocide and military occupation happening internationally.
