In Loving Memory of Mrs. Hazel M. Johnson,

the Mother of Environmental Justice (1935-2011)

The environmental justice community is mourning the death of Mrs. Hazel M. Johnson who passed away of congestive heart failure at the age of 75 on Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011.  Advocate, community organizer, founder and most importantly, the Mother of Environmental Justice, are just a few titles that embody Mrs. Johnson’s memory.    Mrs. Johnson pushed the envelope to protect her community, wasn’t blinded by greed or politics, and was relentlessly committed to empowerment of and justice for communities disproportionately exposure to environmental hazards. 

She embraced the concept of “environmental justice” as it deeply resonated with her dedication to provide environmental protection to all people regardless of their race/ethnicity/origin, color, sexual orientation or income.  After her husband died from lung cancer in 1969, Mrs. Johnson began what became her lifetime commitment to advocating for environmental justice.  In the early 1970s she began by questioning the link between disease, particularly cancer prevalence, and environmental exposures in her community of Calumet in the Chicago area.  Her prodding revealed that her very own community or "the toxic doughnut” - a community encircled by toxins, as Mrs. Johnson referred to it - had once been home to an industrial sludge dump in the mid 1800s, was currently surrounded by functional industrial factories, and was among the nation's most polluted areas.  The land was never tested for accumulated toxins or cleared as a safe residential area.   With this information she single handedly began her fight with the Chicago Housing Authority to demand public disclosure of the air, water and land quality in her community. 

In 1979 she founded People for Community Recovery (PCR), one of the oldest African-American community-based environmental organizations in the Midwest with a mission to “enhance the quality of life of residents living in communities affected by pollution”.  Throughout the 1980s she focused on educating herself, her community and her organization on environmental diseases while simultaneously documenting illness occurrence linked to environmental exposures in her community.  She has been a key player in demanding closures of many local industrial factories, the clean up of PCBs in the soil in various areas of Chicago and was instrumental in persuading city health officials to test what was later determined to be a cyanide-contaminated drinking water in a South Side Chicago neighborhood.

PCR has conducted trainings around green jobs and environmental hazards (e.g. “Resident Education About Lead Project). This organization was awarded the Presidents Environmental and Conservation Challenge Award in 1992 (under former President George Bush, Sr.). Her tireless advocacy work throughout Chicago gained her national notoriety in 1994, where she joined a group of activists in urging President Bill Clinton to sign the Environmental Justice order 12898, holding the federal government accountable for investigating the impact of pollution on low income, minority urban communities.  Most recently, PCR worked together with Northwestern University to produce a film called, “Poison Promise of Altgeld Gardens” that documents the lawsuits filed by residents against the Chicago Housing Authority for PCB and PAH contamination in Altgeld Gardens in the Southside of Chicago. She was also named one of 12 “sheroes” of Environmental Justice at the Second National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 2002.

Mrs. Johnson’s legacy reminds each of us that it takes only one voice and pure dedication to make change in our communities.  She demonstrated that through education, perseverance and tenacity, change is possible and attainable beyond our local communities.  She has taught us that constant vigilance and activism keep policy makers accountable to the people regarding environmental issues.  And it is in her memory that we will continue to forge new ground, despite all odds, to expand the environmental justice movement.  The environmental justice movement will greatly miss Mrs. Hazel’s persistence, but will fight to progress in her memory.