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Bullard Center Environmental & Climate Justice

About This Collection

The Robert D. Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University was launched to address longstanding issues of systemic inequality and structural racism that cause disproportionate pain, suffering and death in Black and other people of color communities.

Today, environmental justice is a headline—registering on the radar of the media, green groups, health, civil rights, human rights and racial justice organizations, social media networks, academic consortia, and educational institutions.  Before environmental justice movement burst onto the national scene it was commonplace, and a generally accepted norm by the larger society, government and industry that steering pollution to poor and people of color communities and away from white and affluent communities was no big deal. For African Americans and other people of color it was a big deal, and they began to wage a frontal assault on environmental racism and began demanding environmental justice for all.

Curated by Victorian

Green Light to Pollute in Texas (TEASER)

Texas is a major global hub for the petrochemical industry, leading the U.S. in refining capacity and production, with the Greater Houston area accounting for over 42% of the nation's base capacity. This industrial concentration disproportionately impacts fenceline communities—often low-income communities of color—who bear increased health and environmental risks due to facility expansions, which are frequently approved by the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality despite public resistance.