Black Youth Stand Up and Stand Tall
In the wise words of Gil Scott Heron “The revolution will not be televised,” meaning the change we want to see in the world will first take place in the minds and actions of those around us. There is no better time than now for young Black adults to use our platforms to speak up, demand our voices be heard in rooms where decisions are made that directly impact us and connect with our community organizations that have been dedicated to the fight for justice.
As the tide continues to shift in the minds and actions of the next generation of leaders, it is time for us to pick up the baton and take action. In this blog post, I will emphasize the realities of Environmental Racism and why it is critical for young people to not only care about this issue but also to be involved in the change they want to see. The cost of unsustainable practices are often disproportionately paid by those who can’t afford it. Our uproar must be echoed in every room in order for us to demand change. Black environmental issues have historically been overshadowed by mainstream justice movements, while societal barriers prohibit Black youth from getting involved keeps real progress stagnant.
When looking into the many petrochemical and industrial facilities posing great health risks today for African Americans, such as in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley or Houston’s Ship Channel, it’s important to understand that occurrences like these are nothing new nor accidental. Professor, author, activist, and environmental sociologist Dr. Robert D. Bullard in his 1990 work “Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, And Environmental Quality” speaks of the nature of Environmental Racism then and foreshadows the reality of it today.
“Race continues to be a potent variable in explaining the spatial layout of urban areas, including housing patterns, street and highway configurations, commercial development, and industrial facility siting,” Dr. Bullard wrote.
Prior to his work, rigorous studies by scholars that examined the connection between race and toxic environmental sites hardly existed, and his contributions play a key role in our approach in advocating for such issues now.
Additionally, Professor Harriet Washington in “A Terrible Thing to Waste” explains that although rarely receiving the media attention of instances like the Love Canal, the percentage of African Americans in “fence line zones” near chemical plants is 75 percent greater than for the United States as a whole. It’s with great certainty that we can debunk any accidental claims in this genocide.
Black environmental issues are just as important as the more controlling images we tend to raise greater concern about, so why aren’t we going as hard for it?
“Research on environmental quality in Black communities has been minimal. Attention has been focused on such problems as crime, drugs, poverty, unemployment, and family crisis,” wrote Dr. Bullard.
Dr. Bullard goes on to say, “Much of the leadership in the civil rights movement came from historically Black colleges and universities…Many of the HBCUs are located in some of the most environmentally polluted communities in the nation. These institutions and their students thus have a vested interest in seeing that improvements are made in local environmental quality. Unlike their move to challenge other forms of inequity, Black student-activists have been conspicuously silent and relatively inactive on environmental problems.” Instances like these remind us that there is much work to do even today to ensure our Black educated leaders and Black educated leaders in the making are utilizing their talents, research, and resources to aid in this fight that should be of concern to all our people.
While there is no definite answer as to why Black youth activism isn’t the most popular, there is existing work that can get us thinking about it while helping expand more in-depth research to better understand the environmental activism component. Some researchers like Alexa Briggs are beginning to explore this question more deeply. In a 2024 article titled “Black Youth Rising,” psychologist Briggs takes a look at what motivates and challenges young Black adults who engage in activism. Briggs doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but her work offers one way to understand why so many of us are inspired by justice movements while others struggle to stay involved—especially when burnout, fear, or lack of support come into play. What Briggs’ work has shown (at least in part) is that our youth aren’t completely obliterated from advocacy and activism, but may just need support from the overburden of the current systems in place that make it hard to sustain such acts of revolution. Lack of well-rounded representation on multidimensional levels is also something to consider. Learning beyond the classroom, but also engaging with community organizations that do this work, is a good start.
Hip Hop Caucus is a nonprofit organization that stands at the intersection of Black culture, politics, and issues like environmental justice, where storytelling and communications are at the forefront. It has been active in amplifying resident voices through its podcast The Coolest Show, on the episode Community Over Cancer Alley, highlights the connection between industrial pollution and health crisis. Hip Hop Caucus also works alongside locally led initiatives like Rise St. James and the Descendants Project to fight polluters such as Formosa Plastics, while pushing for accountability from major financial institutions and policy makers whose decisions perpetuate environmental racism. I believe a key thing that makes this organization’s work powerful is its ability to blend the arts, activism, and policy, which can meet young people (like myself) where they are and show us that storytelling, creativity, and civic action are tools for meaningful liberation. For young Black adults looking to take part in the environmental justice movement, supporting or partnering with organizations like Hip Hop Caucus offers both mentorship and a meaningful way to transform awareness into action.
Given that Environmental Racism continues to threaten Black communities across the nation, it’s important that my generation uses our potential and power to help rewrite that story. Vast health disparities that have (in part) resulted from this are not worth settling for because they have already been going on for far too long. This fight is not just a moral issue for us but a human issue that everyone needs to take seriously. Nobel Peace Prize winner and Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai once said, “The generation that destroys the environment is not the generation that pays the price. That is the problem.” As young Black adults, it’s important that we interrupt this cycle of paying the price. We can do this by staying informed, using our platforms for good, and aligning ourselves with organizations, such as Hip Hop Caucus, showing up to local fights, and educating our peers. The same creativity that drives Black Culture can drive the change we need because when we rise, those in power have no choice but to listen.