Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town

Checker, Melissa

ISBN 10: 081471658X / ISBN 13: 9780814716588

Published by New York University Press, New York, 2005

About this Item

273, [3] p. Illustrations. Chapter Notes. Bibliography. Index. This work was the Association for Humanist Sociology 2007 Book Award co-winner. The author was on the faculty of the University of Memphis. Over the past two decades, environmental racism has become the rallying cry for whole communities-African American, urban, and poor-as they discover that they are contaminated by toxic chemicals and industrial waste. Living next door to factories and industrial sites for years, the people in these communities often have record health problems and debilitating medical conditions. Melissa Checker tells the story of one such neighborhood, Hyde Park, in Augusta, Georgia, and the tenacious activism of its two hundred African American families. This community, at one time surrounded by nine polluting industries including three factories and two junkyards, is struggling to make their voices heard and their community safe again. For the past twelve years, the residents have been battling for compensation from the industries, which they say have ruined their homes and health. These residents, many of them veterans of the civil rights movement, now have a new battle: environmental justice. In Polluted Promises, Checker argues that Hyde Park stands for many other African American and other poor and minority communities, especially but not exclusively in the South. Hyde Park shows that even in the post-civil rights era, race and class are still key factors in determining the politics of pollution. First edition. First pbk printing stated.

Seller Inventory # 67026

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town
• Publisher: New York University Press, New York
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081471658X
• ISBN 13: 9780814716588
• Binding: Trade paperback
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very good. Signed by author.
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Civil Rights
  • Black Studies

About this title

Synopsis

Association for Humanist Sociology 2007 Book Award co-winner

Julian Steward Award 2006 Runner-Up

One community's fight against industrial contamination and environmental racism

Over the past two decades, environmental racism has become the rallying cry for many communities as they discover the contaminations of toxic chemicals and industrial waste in their own backyards.

Living next door to factories and industrial sites for years, the people in these communities often have record health problems and debilitating medical conditions. Melissa Checker tells the story of one such neighborhood, Hyde Park, in Augusta, Georgia, and the tenacious activism of its two hundred African American families. This community, at one time surrounded by nine polluting industries, is struggling to make their voices heard and their community safe again.

Polluted Promises shows that even in the post-civil rights era, race and class are still key factors in determining the politics of pollution.

About the Author

Melissa Checker is the Hagedorn Professor of Urban Studies at Queens College and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town and co-editor of Sustainability in the Global City: Myth and Practice.