At a lecture at Elmhurst College on February 12, scholar Sylvia Hood Washington spoke about the impact of environmental hazards on disadvantaged neighborhoods.
A faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, Washington recently was appointed by Governor Pat Quinn to sit on Illinois’ first Environmental Justice Commission. Her pioneering book, Packing Them In: An Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865-1954, documents how generations of Chicago’s poor, working class and ethnic minority residents have suffered disproportionately from the harmful effects of pollution.
The lecture, “Sustainable Justice for Marginalized Communities,” was part of the College’s Martin Luther King Jr. Intercultural Lecture series.