 Community Assistance > Voices of a Movement
Voices of a Movement:
Words of Wisdom from Environmental Leaders
As part of the 25th Anniversary Edition of Everyone's Backyard, we asked a number of leaders to reflect on their experiences and provide short quotes that capture important lessons they’ve learned over the years. Their valuable words of experience are provided below.
In opposing the construction and operation of the WTI hazardous waste incinerator, we have learned that low income populations and communities of color have been targeted for the location of hazardous waste facilities that frequently promise jobs and prosperity, but in fact bring a threat to the health, environment and safety of the families that live in these areas. We have learned that it is never too late to take back the government and to make our public officials truly servants of the people; that common ordinary citizens through hard work and diligence can expose the pretense of using good science to justify the use of risk assessment to evaluate public health; that government does not always act in the best interests of its people; and that the major challenges facing any organization are combating apathy and convincing the membership that “you can fight city hall.” Your individual efforts and participation do make a difference, though success does not come easy.
Alonzo Spencer
Save Our County
East Liverpool, OH
Over the past 28 years of working in the environmental justice movement, I have come to realize the importance of longevity, persistence, and connectedness to the place in which we live, work, learn and play. I’ve come to recognize that communities are not simply groupings of buildings filled with consumers, customers, or clients whose behavior is studied, managed and manipulated by powerful outside forces. Communities are families, neighbors, and individuals, who recognize the necessity of sharing power and sharing responsibility. Their voice brings perspective to the public debate of those most directly affected in ways that can refocus attention to the most urgent needs of our families, neighbors and fellow residents and can breathe new compassion, creativity, and responsibility into the public debate and decision making process.
Penny Newman
Center for Community and Environmental Justice
Riverside, CA
One of my favorite quotes is that of Frederick Douglass who said, in part, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress” and “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” The Environmental Health Coalition’s mission and that of the environmental health and justice movement, is to make the demand. Our job is to ask the hard questions, demand what may be unpopular and to have the courage to be persistent until we win. Whether it’s air toxics you can’t see or smell; pollution at the bottom of our beautiful bay or lead in paint dust, our job is to make the invisible visible to protect people and the environment. Empowering community leaders to be visible and effective is just as important as winning the fight. As our collective voices get louder, we become stronger and more powerful. Together we can do it – ¡si se puede!
Diane Takvorian
Environmental Health Coalition
San Diego, CA
We learned Lois Gibbs’ lessons on effective organizing the hard way. In fighting the proposed incinerator in St. Lawrence County, we had the best science available in the world but lost every step of the way in state adjudicatory hearings. We couldn’t get our foot in the door, even with expensive lawyers. However, we eventually won our battle after 5 and a half years - the night before bonds were to be issued - because of grassroots organizing that pressured the local politicians. Lois’s message: 1) you won’t win with lawyers (they are extremely expensive and your troops go to sleep); 2) science won’t win the battle but it helps to know you are on the right side and 3) what wins is mobilizing politically. Build coalitions of citizens and groups with a broad range of interests and backgrounds and put bone-crushing pressure on the decision makers. Effecting change is like driving a nail through wood. The expert can sharpen the nail but you need the weight of public opinion to drive the nail home!
Paul Connett
St. Lawrence University
Canton, NY
After 22 years of work in rural southern communities, I have learned to listen to the wisdom of the people. A wizened cab driver told me, “I knew we were poor, but I didn’t know we were that poor.” A brand-new 75 year old activist asked, “Why don’t they just stop making this stuff?” An exasperated young woman concluded, “I don’t care who gets the methane, let’s talk about how we’re gonna stop this mega-dump.” I have learned that community campaigns are like poker: every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser. Self-confidence and timing are everything. I have learned that one person speaking alone may not be heard, but many people speaking with one voice cannot be ignored.
Janet Zeller
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League
Glendale Springs, NC
The power of grassroots people united in a cause for health and environmental justice can overcome the combined currencies of money and politics. Despite overwhelming odds, the grassroots people can prevail through an unwavering commitment to the well-being of all people and the environment in which they live, work, play and pray. The power of the people’s united voice for good must be respected and nourished.
Suzi Ruhl
Environmental Law Institute and founder of the Legal
Environmental Assistance Foundation, Inc.
We outnumber our adversaries nearly 20-to-1 but they keep us divided and therefore conquered. They (the few) rule us (the many) because we don’t yet see that all our issues have a common thread -- whether its toxics, or poverty, or homelessness, or bad housing, or lousy schools, or money that steals elections, or good jobs shipped overseas, or low-wage jobs that are boring and dangerous with no benefits, or crappy food, or white supremacy, or seniors tossed aside, or stupid wars, or unaffordable medical care, or unsafe neighborhoods, or sprawl, or women disrespected, or no mass transit, or children who go to bed hungry -- it all boils down to this: the economy and the government are not being run for the benefit of the people who do all the work and create everything. It’s all being run by and for a handful of greedy @#$&*%#! who only care about themselves. And we could change it all if we just decided to get together, make a plan, and do it.
Peter Montague
Environmental Research Foundation
New Brunswick, NJ
We can only use the law as a means, not an end, because fundamentally the laws are not written by or for communities facing environmental hazards. We win in court, the polluters appeal; we win the appeal, they go to Congress to change the law. Any victory we win only in court can disappear in a moment – we have to win in the streets and in the political arena for there to be lasting change. When groups say, “we need a lawyer!” I warn them that often they are wrong. We need a movement.
Luke Cole
Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment
San Francisco, CA
I shake the hands of all the people that have contributed to 25 years of publication of Everyone’s Backyard. This reflects the perseverance and heart of an organization that believes in the work it does. From my experience working in a network of tribal nations and communities, it takes heart and mind working together to be focused on the challenges we face to protect the sacredness of our Mother Earth. To work for the environment is spiritual work that must recognize the four sacred elements of water, soil, air and fire. It is through this foundation that nurtures the spirit of community to organize and draw strength to take action to protect the health of our future generations.
Tom Goldtooth
Indigenous Environmental Network
Bemidji, MN
Companies that violate environmental laws will also violate labor laws. Those that don’t respect the environment also tend to run unsafe operations that place workers, their families, and community members at risk. What this means is that we have more allies than we realize because workers and the community have twin goals: safe workplaces-safe communities. We need to get beyond the myth that protecting the environment costs jobs. The fact is, companies that invest in pollution control equipment are much more likely to continue operating in this country; such investments are really job security.
Diane Heminway
United Steelworkers
Environmental Projects Coordinator
Pittsburgh, PA
While our movement has fundamentally been about rights and accountability, it also turned out to be about technologies, solutions and visions. We started by focusing on the problems of dump sites and wastes and we struggled for the right to be free of chemical hazards; to go to work without undo risks, and to live in safe neighborhoods. We learned that no one, not governments or businesses, was going to come up with the solutions. We needed to develop our own literacy in science and technology and we needed to create programs like right-to-know, toxics use reduction, good neighbor agreements, citizen monitoring, precaution, and chemicals policies that would lead us towards a safer and more secure community. We may have started out hoping others might solve our problems; we ended up finding that the solutions to achieving a more just and sustainable future lie mainly in ourselves.
Ken Geiser
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, MA
Scientific information is necessary and plays an important role in the struggle for a cleaner, healthier, more satisfying environment, but its importance pales in comparison to the efforts of local community groups. The most essential ingredient has been citizen initiative, input and involvement not only for the political pressure community groups provide, but because they are the most important ingredient in the science itself: they know what health effects they are suffering, where the environmental hazards are, and the pathways the hazards take to their families. There is no substitute for a tenacious, engaged and informed community. Without it, nothing will happen. With it, anything can happen.
David Ozonoff
Boston University School of Public Health
Boston, MA
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the years is the strength and inspiration of people standing up and speaking “truth to power.” I remember a group of us showing up to testify at an EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) meeting as part of CHEJ’s Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign. The “scientists” on the board were supposed to declare if they had any potential conflicts of interest. Of course they didn’t tell the truth about their inherent bias. So, we organized a demonstration in the meeting and stood up with signs showing the industry bias of the committee members who were supposed to be acting on the Dioxin Reassessment. Each of us stood proudly (we had done our research!) with a placard showing the corporate affiliations of SAB members such as Dennis Paustenbach and John Graham. People standing up and speaking the truth are powerful agents of positive change.
Pamela Miller
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Anchorage, AK
In almost every environmental fight, people at one time or another want to hire a lawyer. The only possible way that you can get a 100% guarantee that you will lose your fight is to hire a lawyer. It is hard for many people to appreciate the fact that laws are written by the polluters and enforced by the judges chosen by the polluters. The law allows the siting and expansion of dump sites and incinerators and if you go to court you will learn this at a very high cost. The only strategy that has any chance of winning is organizing. So many times when I make suggestions about organizing, I get the response “we have already tried that.” My response is always, then “you just have not done it enough.” Lawyers only get in the way.
Ron Simon
Simon and Associates
Washington, D.C.
You will fight and win many battles along the way, be they small or large. You must always celebrate your wins and learn from your defeats. You have to educate yourself and show the community that you have their best interest at heart, that you truly are an advocate for them. They must feel that they are listened to and that their opinions matter. You have to organize around those issues that negatively affect the community most, allow the community to participate in the planning process to create a plan that you can implement and track together. Involve the community from the beginning, be persistent and always remember that ‘a squeaky wheel will get oiled.’
Shirley Williams-Baker
Mothers and Daughters Protecting Children’s Health
Anniston, AL
Of the many important lessons I’ve learned, Chief Seattle’s simple message stands out: “all things are connected.” When we first started Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, we thought that our problem was ground water pollution and that the solution was cleanup. Over the years we’ve learned that water pollution is merely a symptom and that we must understand the root causes of any problem before it is possible to develop strategies for sustainable solutions that are comprehensive and not piecemeal. Bottom line, in an era of corporate globalization, we must create a global grass-roots movement from the bottom up.
Ted Smith
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
San Jose, CA
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