Environmental and economic justice advocate Richard Moore will present an MLK Symposium lecture titled “Environmental Justice: Victories, Challenges and Future Possibilities” at 5 p.m. Jan. 24 in the Rackham Amphitheater.
The lecture is part of the School of Natural Resources and Environment Dean’s Speaker Series and is co-sponsored by the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Moore is a senior adviser and special projects coordinator at the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (SNEEJ) in Albuquerque, N.M. A national leader in the environmental justice movement, Moore has seen it grow over the past 20 years from a handful of grassroots groups to a unified national movement.
Along the way, movement activists helped broaden the definition of environmentalism to include environmental justice issues, Moore says. The concept of environmental justice is based on the principle that environmental laws and protections should extend to all people, regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status.
“We redefined environmentalism to include issues related to where we live, where we work, where we play, where we pray and where we go to school,” Moore says. “Previously, topics such as the health issues resulting from pollution near low-income neighborhoods were treated exclusively as social justice or racial issues.”
Photo courtesy Richard Moore.
Moore has more than 40 years of experience as a community organizer. During that time, he has worked in community-based organizations addressing a wide range of issues: welfare rights, police repression, street gang activity, drug abuse, low-cost healthcare access, child nutrition, the fight against racism, and the struggle for environmental and economic justice. He is a founding member of SNEEJ, where he served 19 years as executive director before assuming his current position.
Looking ahead, Moore says the environmental justice movement must tackle some of the global issues confronting humanity, such as climate change.
“There are a lot of things related to climate change that are already impacting our communities,” he says. “So it’s a very important issue to us, and we want to be part of the solution and to speak for ourselves.”
