U.S.

African American Religious and Civic Environmentalism Resources

Compiled by Elonda Clay, MLIS, M.Div., Th.M. and 2008-2009 GreenFaith Fellow This is a bibliographic resource for U.S. African American Religious and Civic Environmentalism. Topics include African American Perspectives on the Environment, Gender and Environmental Justice for Women of Color, and Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice, and U.S. Black Environmental Liberation Theology. Materials for a case study in environmental racism/environmental justice on Hurricane Katrina are also listed. Recommended Introductory Books Dianne D. Graves and Mark Stoll. To Love the Wind and the Rain: African Americans and Environmental History. (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006). Kimberly Smith. African American Environmental Thought: Foundations. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2007). Robert D. Bullard, ed., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots. (Boston: South End Press, 1993). Carney, Judith A. and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff. In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World. Berkeley: University of California Press. January 2010. African American Perspectives on the Environment 2006 Conference on Black Environmental Thought. Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, Alabama. Available at http://www.blackenvirothought.org/. William Arp, III and James Llorens. Environmental Justice for Black Americans: A Question of Fairness. The Western Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 23 No. 2 1999. Jones, Robert Emmet. Black Concern for the Environment: Myth versus Reality, Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 11, Issue 3, Apr/May98. Mayer, Sylvia, ed. Restoring the Connection to the Natural World: Essays on the African American Environmental Imagination. (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003). Klindienst, Patricia. Freedom The Gardens of Two Gullah Elders. St. Helena Islands, South Carolina, In The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans. (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2007). Mitchem, Stephanie Y. African American Folk Healing. (New York: New York University Press, 2007). Mitchem, Stephanie Y. and Emilie Townes, eds. Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008.

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Ecocriticism/Social Constructions of Race and Nature Gerhardt, Christine. The Greening of African American Landscapes: Where Ecocriticism Meets Post-Colonial Theory. Mississippi Quarterly 2004. Merchant, Carolyn. "Shades of Darkness: Race and Environmental History." Environmental History 8, no. 3 (July 2003): 380-394. Outka, Paul. Race and Nature from Transcendentalism to the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Wade, Peter. Race, Nature and Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. (London: Pluto Press, 2002). Gender and Environmental Justice for Women of Color Walker, Alice. Am I Blue? In Living By the Word: Selected Writings, 1973-1987. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1988). hooks, bell. Touching the Earth In At Home on the Earth: Becoming Native to Our Place: A Multicultural Anthology, ed David Landis Barnhill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Kaalund, Valerie Ann. (2004) Witness to Truth: Black Women Heeding the Call for Environmental Justice, In New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: gender, sexuality, and activism. Rachael Stein, ed.Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Baker-Fletcher, Karen. Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit: Womanist Wordings on God and Creation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998. Baker-Fletcher, Karen. Something or Nothing: An Eco-Womanist Essay on God, Creation, and Indispensability, in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, 2nd Ed., ed. Roger S. Gottlieb. London: Routledge, 2004, 428-437. Krauss, Celene. Women of Color On the Front Line, In Robert Bullard, ed., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots, (Boston: South End Press, 1993). Lourde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. New York: Spinsters Ink, 1980. Richardson, Tina. Changing Landscapes: Mapping Breast Cancer as an Environmental Justice Issue in Audre Lordes The Cancer Journals, In Sylvia Mayer, ed. Restoring the Connection to the Natural World, 129-147.

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Riley, Shamara Shantu. Ecology Is A Sistahs Issue Too: The Politics of Emergent Afrocentric Womanism In Worldviews, Religion, and the Environment: A Global Anthology ed. Richard C. Foltz. (Belmont,CA: Wadsworth, 2003). Taylor, Dorceta E.(1997) "Women of Color, Environmental Justice and Ecofeminism," in Ecofeminism: Women, Nature and Culture, Karen J. Warren, ed., Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, pp. 38-81. Taylor, Dorceta E. 2002. Race, Class, Gender and American Environmentalism. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr534.pd Thomas, Linda. God is Creation: Womanist Theology and the Earth. Paper delivered at The World Forum on Theology and Liberation 2009. Available at http://www.wftl.org/pdf/023.pdf . White, Evelyn C. "Black Women and the Wilderness." In Teresa Jordan and James Hepworth, eds. Stories that Shape Us: Contemporary Women Write about the West. New York: Norton, 1995. Williams, Delores S. Sin, Nature, and Black Women's Bodies," in Ecofeminism and the Sacred, ed. Carol J. Adams (New York: Continuum, 1993), 24-29. African American Diaspora and Foodways Harris, Jessica B. Same Boat, Different Stops: An African Atlantic Culinary Journey In African Roots, American Cultures: African in the Creation of the Americas, Shelia S. Walker, ed. (Landham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 169-182. Black Scientists and Sustainable Agriculture Carver, George Washington. The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South The American Monthly Review of Reviews, ed. Albert Shaw (1902), 321. Mc Murry, Linda O. George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 269-270. Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Online Video Resources Nellie Hester Bailey Speaks: Nellie Hester Bailey, co-founder of Harlem Tenants Council (HTC) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sY_Lz6gzXc Naomi Davis, Founder and CEO of B.I.G.-Blacks In Green, Chicago, IL on self-sustainable African American communities http://blip.tv/file/1789334/ Van Jones, founder and president of the Green for All, co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Special Advisor, White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Interview on NOW (PBS) http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/522/index.html

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MacArthur Genius Award-winning activist Majora Carters Greening the Ghetto talk at TED 2006. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2883494385256707942 Trinity Church (Wall Street) 2009 Trinity Institute Conference: Radical Abundance - a theology of sustainability, guest speaker Majora Carter http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/webcasts/videos/faith-formation-education/trinity-institute-2009radical-abundance/radical-abundance-majora-carter Print/Web Resources Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/ National Black Environmental Justice Network http://www.nbejn.org/ United Church of Christ. Toxic Wastes and Race and Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty reports. New York, NY: Commission for Racial Justice. http://www.ucc.org/environmental-ministries/environment/toxic-waste-20.html National Black Church Environmental and Economic Justice Summit Report (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1993). The First National People of Color Leadership Conference, Principles of Environmental Justice, in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 1996) 23037. Robert D. Bullard, ed., Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1994). Robert D. Bullard. The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2005). Robert D. Bullard, J. Eugene Grigsby, Charles Lee, Joe R. Feagin. Residential Apartheid: the American legacy. CAAS Publications, 1994. Julian Agyeman, Robert D. Bullard and Bob Evans, eds. Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World. MIT Press 2003. Carter, Majora. Sustainable South Bronx: A Model for Environmental Justice. E. F. Schumacher Society, 2007. Available at http://www.humanscale.org/publications/Carter_07.html Washington, Silvia Hood, Heather Goodall, and Paul C. Rosier, eds. Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice. Lexington Books, 2006. Jones, Van. The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008). Created by Elonda Clay, MLIS August 2009 4

Rasmussen, Larry. Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice: Moral Theory in the Making? Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 24, 1 (2004): 3-28. Robinson, Deborah M. Environmental Racism: Old Wine in New Bottles Available at http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/echoes/echoes-17-02.html Schlosberg, David. Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism: The Challenge of Difference for Environmentalism. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Taylor, Dorceta E.(1999). "Mobilizing for Environmental Justice in Communities of Color: An Emerging Profile of People of Color Environmental Groups," in Ecosystem Management: Adaptive Strategies for Natural Resource Organizations in the 21st Century, Jennifer Aley, William Burch, Beth Canover and Donald Field, eds., Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Francis, pp. 33-67. Taylor, Dorceta E. (2000). The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm: Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses. American Behavioral Scientist 43: 50880. Williams, Orrin. (2005) Food and Justice: The Critical Link to Healthy Communities In Power, Justice and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Case Study in Environmental Racism/Environmental Justice: Hurricane Katrina When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts - HBO Documentary Films, Spike Lee, Director http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke/ Bullard, Robert D. Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters Social Research Vol 75 : No 3 : Fall 2008. Johnson, Glenn S. Environmental Justice and Katrina: A Senseless Environmental Disaster The Western Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2008. Sze, Julie (2005). Toxic Soup Redux: Why Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Matter after Katrina. Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences. Social Sciences Research Council, retrievable at http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Sze/ Steinberg, Theodore. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)

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African Indigenous Religions and Ecology Antonio, Edward. Ecology as Experience in African Indigenous Religions, In Linda Thomas, ed. Living Stones In the Household of God: The Legacy and Future of Black Theology. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2004) , 146-157. Kalu, Ogbu U. The Sacred Egg: Worldview, Ecology, and Development in West Africa In Indigenous Religions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community, edited by John Grim. Boston: Harvard University Press, 2000. Black Catholic Tradition Washington, Sylvia Hood. (2006). "We've Come This Far By Faith": Memories of Race, Religion, and Environmental Disparity. In S. H. Washington, H. Goodall, & P. Rosier (Eds.), Echoes from the poisoned well: global memories of environmental injustice. Lanham: Lexington Books. African American Islam Akom, A. A. (2007) Cities as battlefields: understanding how the Nation of Islam impacts on civic engagement, environmental racism, and community development in a low income neighborhood International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Vol. 20, No. 6, November-December 2007, pp. 711730. Available at http://cci.sfsu.edu/files/Cities%20as %20Battlefields.pdf U.S. Black Liberation Theology Resources (Protestant Christian Tradition) The TheoEcology Project at The Interdenominational Theological Center http://www.theoecology.org/ Cone, James H. Whose Earth Is It, Anyway? In Earth Habitat: Eco-Injustice and the Churchs Response, ed. Dieter Hessel and Larry Rasmussen. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001. Cone, James H. One Earth, One Struggle. The Other Side, January and February 2004. Glave, Diane D. Black Environmental Liberation Theology In To Love the Wind and the Rain: African Americans and Environmental History, eds. Dianne D. Graves and Mark Stoll. (Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburg Press, 2006). Gray, T. L. Consider This In Holy Ground: A Gathering of Voices on Caring for Creation. Edited by Lyndsay Moseley and the staff of Sierra Club Books; foreward by Carl Pope. (San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 2008). T. L. Gray is a minister of the National Baptist Convention and a doctoral student at Vanderbilt. This is a link to his blog. http://tlgrayspeaks.blogspot.com/ Holmes, Barbara. Race and the Cosmos: An Invitation to View the World Differently. (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International Press, 2002). Created by Elonda Clay, MLIS August 2009 6

Holmes, Barbara. Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2004). Hopkins, Dwight N. Holistic Health and Healing: Environmental Racism and Ecological Justice Paper delivered at The World Forum on Theology and Liberation 2009. Available at http://www.wftl.org/pdf/024.pdf. Also published in the book, Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life, Stephanie Y. Mitchem and Emilie M. Townes, eds. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008. Pinn, Anthony B. Of Money, God, and Earth: The Black Church on Economics and Environmental Racism. Journal of Religious Thought. Smith, Jr., Theodore. "African-American Resources for a More Inclusive Liberation Theology in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, 2nd Ed., ed. Roger S. Gottlieb. London: Routledge, 2004. Stoll, Mark. Religion and African American Environmentalism In To Love the Wind and the Rain: African Americans and Environmental History, eds. Dianne D. Graves and Mark Stoll. (Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburg Press, 2006). Historical Geography Carney, Judith A. Black rice. The African origins of rice cultivation in the Americas. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). Carney, Judith A. and Robert A. Voeks. The Landscape Legacies of the African Diaspora in Brazil Progress in Human Geography Vol. 27 Number 2 (2003), 139152. Littlefield, Daniel C. Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in Colonial South Carolina. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1991). Kobayashi, Audrey, Critical race approaches to cultural geography. In James Duncan, Nuala Johnson and Richard Schein, eds. The Companion to Cultural Geography. (Oxford and Malden, M.A.: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 238-249. Anti-Urban Bias Avner de-Shalit, Ruralism or Environmentalism? Environmental Values Vol. 5, 1996, pp. 47-58. Bennett, Michael. Cities in the New Millennium: Environmental Justice, the Spatialization of Race, and Combating Anti-Urbanism, Journal of African American Studies, Summer-Fall 2004, Vol. 8, No. 1 & 2, pp. 126-141. Light, Andrew. The Urban Blind Spot in Environmental Ethics, Environmental Politics Volume 10, Issue 1 (Spring 2001).

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"Postcolonial ecocriticism." Theme issue of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 14.1 (Winter 2007). Caste From the Past: Environmentalism's elistist tinge has roots in the movement's history http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2006/03/08/klingle/index.html

Environmental History Beinart, William. "Beyond the Colonial Paradigm: African History and Environmental History in Large-Scale Perspective." In The Environment and World History, edited by Edmund Burke III and Kenneth Pomeranz. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. 211228. Looks at approaches to the study of environmental history in areas of Africa that came under British control during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Created by Elonda Clay, MLIS

August 2009