Hazel M. Johnson

Hazel M. Johnson (January 25, 1935 – January 12, 2011) was an environmental activist on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. She is considered to be the mother of environmental justice.[1]

Hazel M. Johnson
Born(1935-01-25)January 25, 1935
New Orleans
DiedJanuary 12, 2011(2011-01-12) (aged 75)
Chicago
OrganizationPeople for Community Recovery
MovementEnvironmental justice

Biography

Johnson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 25, 1935, to Mary (née Dunmore) and Clarence Washington. Orphaned when she was 12 years old, she was sent to live with an aunt in Los Angeles. She attended Jefferson High School for two years, then returned to New Orleans to live with her grandmother. She met John Johnson there a few months later and in 1955, they moved with their two children to Woodlawn, Chicago. While raising a family Johnson worked a number of jobs including recruiting members to an African American neighborhood association, sorting mail for the U.S. Postal Service, and working as an administrative support for Parents and Friends of Retarded Children.[1] The Johnsons moved to Altgeld Gardens Homes, a South Side, Chicago housing project managed by the Chicago Housing Authority, in 1962.[1]

Environmental Justice Work

Altgeld Gardens was originally built to house American war veterans, the area was by surrounded landfills, industrial buildings and sewage-treatment plants.[2] Following the death of her husband in 1969 from lung cancer and the prevalence of skin and respiratory issues among her seven children, Johnson began investigating the impacts of the neighborhood's environmental conditions on its residents.[1] She documented the occurrence of chronic health problems present in the community in order to better understand the impacts of the area's air and water pollution.[3] . What Hazel Johnson discovered was a gut-wrenching truth: Altgeld Gardens sat in the center of a 14-square-mile ring of pollution from Chicago’s Southeast Side to Northwest Indiana.[4] What Johnson learned led her to dub the neighborhood "The Toxic Donut".[4][5] In addition to being exposed to hazardous fumes from surrounding factories and asbestos used during construction of the buildings, the community was supplied with contaminated drinking water and was found to have the highest cancer rate in the city.[6][5]

Following the death of her husband, Johnson's growing awareness about the impacts of environmental hazards on people's health prompted her to begin agitating for accountability from the Chicago Housing Authority regarding their failure to properly maintain buildings and ignoring environmental hazards.[1] She ran for and was elected to the Altgeld Gardens Local Advisory Council in 1970, remaining in the role until 1979 before founding the People for Community Recovery.[1] For her efforts Johnson has been recognized as the mother of the environmental justice movement.[5][1] Over the next few decades, PCR waged an environmental justice war for Atgeld residents.[1] In the mid-1980s she discovered the entire housing project had been built with asbestos and PCB waste was dumped on the Altgeld Gardens site by the Chicago Housing Authority. PCR directly confronted corporations that were the main polluters such as Waste Management. In 1987, hundreds of protestors blocked the gate of Waste Management to prevent dump trucks from discharging waste into the landfill. Johnson’s persistent lobbying in local and government entities like the EPA helped push for legislation.[4][7]

People for Community Recovery

In 1979 Johnson founded the People for Community Recovery to address tenant issues within the Chicago area.[8] Incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 1982, the group focused "on fighting environmental racism as it affected the residents of Altgeld Gardens public housing project."[1] One of their first achievements was successfully lobbying the city of Chicago to test the well-sourced drinking water supplied to Maryland Manor, which demonstrated the presence of toxins, cyanide among them, in the community's water. The 1984 findings resulted in the introduction of water and sewer lines to the area.[3][5]

The People for Community Recovery, which continues to operate today under the leadership of Johnson's daughter Cheryl, went on to conduct multiple surveys documenting the South Side's "abnormally high rates of respiratory, pulmonary, and skin-related disease in addition to high infant death rates and cancer."[1] Records regarding their activities spanning from 1935 to 2007 were donated to the Chicago Public Library for public use in 2009.[1]

Legacy

By the establishment of PCR, Johnson had gained a narrative for herself. She joined the environmental movement which around the 1970s was a primarily white, middle-class movement. Her name became popular around the nation as she inspired other start-up non-profits to fight legislation on their own toxic waste communities. She mentored college students and other young activists who now form the new generation of leaders of the environmental justice movement.[7] She even mentored former President Barack Obama, a young community organizer at the time, to help push for the removal of asbestos from Altgeld Gardens.[1][8] Hazel Johnson’s daughter, Cheryl Johnson also worked with her mother at the beginning of PCR’s establishment and now upholds her mother’s role as executive director.[3][7]

 In 1991, she was invited to the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C where she was acknowledged as the “Mother of Environment Justice Movement”. It was described by Johnson as a dream she did not realize was one she had until it happened. At the Leadership Summit, Johnson worked with peers from community organizers across the country to create 17 Principals of Environmental Justice, that are still referenced today.[4][8]

In 1994, Johnson was invited by President Clinton to witness the signing of Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.[8] This was a major day in environmental history, thanks to the work done by Johnson.

Johnson was given the 1992 President's Environment and Conservation Challenge award in recognition of her environmental justice work.[9] In 2004 sociologist David Naguib Pellow credited Johnson and the People for Community Recovery with putting "the South Side of Chicago on the radar screen for activists and policy makers around the United States who are concerned about environmental racism."[6]: 68–69  Of her work Johnson explained: "It's all very well to embrace saving the rain forests and conserving endangered animal species, but such global initiatives don't even begin to impact communities inhabited by people of color."[3]

On January 12, 2011, the Illinois General Assembly, by way of a house joint resolution, designated "the portion of 130th Street from the Bishop Ford Freeway to State Street in Chicago as the "Hazel Johnson EJ Way".[10] The naming of the stretch was officially celebrated during a ribbon cutting ceremony on September 15, 2016.[11]

Religious Affiliation

Johnson was Catholic.[7]

Death

Johnson passed away on January 12, 2011 due to complications related to congestive heart failure.[1][5][8] She continued to live in Altgeld Gardens her entire life, despite her knowledge of the toxic pollutants lurking in her community.

References
  1. "People for Community Recovery Archives". Chicago Public Library. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  2. Peltz, Jennifer (21 October 1999). "Altgeld Gardens Group Sues Cha Over Health Concerns". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  3. Ramirez, Margaret (16 January 2011). "Hazel M. Johnson, 1935-2011". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  4. "People for Community Recovery Archives". www.chipublib.org. Retrieved 2023-05-08.
  5. Trice, Dawn Turner (10 March 2010). "Far South Side environmental activist Hazel Johnson and her daughter 'decided to stay here and fight'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  6. Pellow, David Naguib (2004). Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262250290. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  7. Roewe, Brian (2021-02-26). "Hazel Johnson, the mother of environmental justice, was Catholic". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved 2021-02-26.
  8. "Rise Up for Environmental Justice". People for Community Recovery. Retrieved 2023-05-08.
  9. Getlin, Josh (18 February 1993). "Fighting Her Good Fight : Hazel Johnson battles those who want to turn her Chicago housing project into a toxic dump". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  10. "Illinois General Assembly - Full Text of HJR0145". www.ilga.gov. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  11. "Chicago just named a street for an environmental justice hero". Grist. 15 September 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
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