Environmental justice

Karen Kendrick-Hands Papers

aorchard — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:58:08 -0400

Karen Kendrick-Hands was a Detroit-area environmental lawyer and activist. Since the 1980s, Kendrick-Hands participated in a variety of causes within Michigan, notably regarding issues of greenhouse gas emissions. Specific actions included the Polluters Pay Act, opposing the split of Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources and Department of Environmental Quality, SEMCOG’s Ozone Action! campaign, and opposition to garbage incinerators in Michigan. Over the years she has supported environmentalism by utilizing her experience as a lawyer to tackle environmental issues from the legal and legislative angles. She has recently become notable as a purveyor of high-end yarn and knit goods and runs a nonprofit organization that promotes the crafts of knitting and crochet.

The Karen Kendrick-Hands Papers contain records regarding the environmental campaigns she participated in over the years. Most records are grouped by subject, often by environmental issue or organization. Much of the collection is comprised of publicly available records with Kendrick-Hands’ personal notes and annotations written in the margins. Commonly found throughout the collection are Karen Kendrick-Hands’ handwritten notes from various meetings and events she attended.

Thomas W. Stephens Papers

drice — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:18:20 -0400

Thomas Stephens was a founder of the Evergreen Alliance, the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition and chaired the National Lawyer's Guild's Toxics Committee in his fight for environmental justice in the Detroit area. His papers reflect his interest and legal work in this arena and related issues, particularly lawsuits involving incinerators in Detroit and Flint, MI.

Urban Environment Conference (UEC) Records

drice — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 11:09:42 -0400

The Urban Environment Conference (UEC) grew out of an effort in 1971 by Michigan Senator Philip Hart to provide a forum for the discussion of problems and issues of joint concern to urban reform groups, environmentalists, and organized labor. Within a year, most of the participants decided to organize the group as a non-profit corporation with both advocacy and clearinghouse functions, including lobbying, education and publicity, fundraising, leadership training, technical assistance on program development, and coalition-building. While protecting on-the-job and community health has been the Conference’s priority issue, UEC also has a notable record on energy, mass transit, fair housing and full employment.

The Urban Environment Conference Collection consists of correspondence, reports, minutes,
clippings and publications related primarily to environmental/occupational health issues affecting minorities at home and in the workplace.

Guest Post: Detroit Incinerator

Public Relations Team — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 11:40:30 -0400

Please note: The oral history course collections mentioned in this post have been consolidated into one collection: Wayne State University Oral History Methodology Course Oral Histories. Please refer to the finding aid here: https://archives.wayne.edu/repositories/2/resources/3381.

The history of the Detroit Incinerator, later rebranded as Detroit Renewable Power, is a microcosm of the history of intersections of environmental and social justice. The Reuther Library has many collections related to the community response surrounding the Incinerator’s building and operation. It was originally built in 1986 near the corner of Russell and East Ferry Street. Billed as the “world’s largest” trash incinerator, read more »

Podcast: Speak to the Earth and it Shall Teach Thee: Catholic Nuns, the United Farm Workers Movement, and the Rise of an Environmental Ethic, 1962-1978

teller — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 15:25:22 -0400

John Buchkoski explores the role that religious women had in grassroots social activism in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly organizations of Catholic women religious. He explains how these groups supported United Farm Worker strikes by publicizing the environmental and health effects of pesticide use and popularizing produce boycotts across Catholic communities. Buchkoski is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma. read more »

[Podcast] Environmental Activism in Deindustrialized Detroit

teller — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 16:13:47 -0400

Brandon Ward explains how Detroit residents, community organizations, and the labor movement, alarmed by the pollution remaining in Detroit’s deindustrialized era that mostly heavily impacted Black Americans and the working class, banded together from the 1970s onward to create a healthier, greener, and more livable city. read more »