by Robert Bullard, interviewed by Jim Motavalli

About the authors: Robert Bullard teaches sociology and chairs the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. Jim Motavalli is the editor of E: The Environmental Magazine, a bimonthly journal.

When, in 1979, Dr. Robert Bullard wrote a study called Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community, nobody had heard of environmental racism. . . . It would be three more years before anyone used that phrase, but Dr. Bullard had plainly made the connection between toxic siting and communities of color, leading to the first lawsuit, Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, (filed by his wife) that used civil rights law to challenge environmental discrimination. By 1991, when Bullard helped plan the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., the fight for environmental justice was well-established, with activists from...