S2.E24. Environmental Justice In The Black Community; A Conversation With Activist Catherine Flowers

With the recent $600 million legal settlement and creation of a victim's compensation fund in the Flint water crisis, Amerikan Therapy decided we needed to better understand what environmental justice is and why black people need to be in this fight.  We sit down with Catherine Flowers, the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ) organization and one of the nations leading back environmental justice warriors.  Ms. Flowers educates Amerikan Therapy on how the African American community is routinely and intentionally exposed to environmental toxins and unsafe living conditions whether we live in an urban city or in the rural south.  This conversation exposes how our environment directly impacts our mental and emotional wellness. There is no escaping the impacts of environmental injustice when it comes to being black in America.  This is a powerful conversation that will change undoubtedly change you. 

Catherine Coleman Flowers is the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ) which seeks the implementation of best practices to address the reduction of health and economic disparities, improve access to clean air, water, and soil in marginalized rural communities by influencing policy, inspiring innovation, catalyzing relevant research and amplifying the voices of community leaders. This is done within the context of climate change and through the lens of environmental justice.

A member of the Board of Directors for the Climate Reality Project, she is employed as the Rural Development Manager for the Equal Justice Initiative and serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. Her goal is to find solutions to raw sewage that exist in rural communities throughout the United States. Catherine is also an internationally recognized advocate for the human right to water and sanitation and works to make the UN Sustainable Development Agenda accountable to frontline communities. Her journey is chronicled in her book entitled Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, which will be published by the New Press this fall.

Catherine's Testimony and Content:  https://centerforearthethics.org/catherine-flowers/