Environmental Justice for All

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Civil Rights

For a man who can’t go anywhere in the world without being identified first as a Kennedy and second as a visionary in his own right, it’s not surprising that Kennedy is understated about the role his family — and particularly his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated on June 5, 1968, while campaigning to become president of the United States — have played in his life’s work. But he is proud and forthright about his mission to continue his family’s legacy of civil rights defense. “The principal issue that came to govern my father’s politics and his personal mission was civil rights,” Kennedy says, “and the environment, to my mind, is the most basic of civil rights.”

He notes that in the word “ecology,” the Greek root “eco” means “house.” Environmental issues, therefore, are essentially about how we care for our home, or the commons — the publicly owned resources, such as air, water, wildlife and fisheries, that cannot be reduced to private property. “These are resources that are not owned by governors, legislatures or corporations, but by the people,” he says. “Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.” Kennedy adds that the most important measure of how a democracy functions is how it distributes the goods of the land, the commons. “Democracy must ensure that these public assets stay within the hands of the people.”

But protecting the commons in an age of rapid population growth and industrial expansion is a complex affair. And despite the sophisticated environmental protections that have been established in the United States, our commons are routinely exploited. Worse still, Kennedy argues, our society invariably allows the burdens of pollution to fall on the backs of the poor and minorities. To support this observation, he rattles off the following statistics:

• Three out of five African-Americans and Hispanics live in communities with toxic waste sites.
• The highest concentration of toxic waste dumps is on Chicago’s South Side, a predominantly Hispanic and African-American area.
• The most contaminated zip code in California is in primarily Hispanic southeast Los Angeles.
• 300,000 mostly Hispanic farm workers are poisoned by pesticides every year.
• Navajo youth have 17 times the rate of sexual organ cancer as other Americans because of the thousands of tons of toxic uranium tailings dumped on their reservation land by mining companies

Inspiring and Fearless

In addition to his legal work, Kennedy is one of the country’s most respected environmental orators and authors. Last May, during a Hollywood fundraising dinner at which he delivered a characteristically stirring speech, Kennedy helped pull in nearly $3 million in donations for NRDC. John Adams, NRDC president, says Kennedy is one of the country’s best spokespersons for the environment, in part because of his charisma. “He’s a combination of his father and his uncle,” Adams says. “He’s a strong person, with will and determination, and he’s up for anything — there’s nothing that he’s afraid to tackle.”

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