Flint's Contamination Crisis Continues

Hazel Johnson was an African American mother from a low-income housing project in Chicago who formed a nonprofit organization, People for Community Recovery (PCR), to clean up her neighborhood, known as the "toxic doughnut" because it had the highest concentration of hazardous waste dumps in the nation. Mrs. Johnson is considered one of the founders of the environmental justice (EJ) movement, which is based on the belief that all people–regardless of their race, color, national origin or income–should enjoy equally high levels of environmental protection. EJ grew out of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1970s, when it became clear that African American and Hispanic children had much greater exposure to lead paint than did other children, and that hazardous waste dumps were disproportionately placed in communities of color. Mrs. Johnson died in 2011, but PCR continues to advocate for clean water and air under the direction of her daughter.