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Abstract
This study chronicles and examines the continuing environmental struggle faced by the residents of Mossville, Louisiana. Mossville residents have argued the African-Americans living in the community of Mossville bear a racially disproportionate burden of industrial pollution. The case of Mossville is unique in that it is for the very first time in history that an international human rights organization is reviewing the alleged charges of environmental racism and injustice through the prism of human rights violation. This study will help other communities that are at the verge of being wiped off from the map to understand the power of community empowerment, mobilizations, and coalitions.
One of the basic natural right and expectation of a human being is to live in an environment that is safe and clean. Despite this expectation of a clean and safe environment, many in the society have been historically discriminated against in this regard (Bullard, 2000; Church of Christ Commission, 1987; Mohai & Saha, 2007). Studies and statistics show that African-Americans are disproportionately exposed to pollution from chemical plants and are disproportionately the victims of environmental discrimination and disparities (U. S. Council on Environmental Quality, 1971; Bullard, 1992, 1993, 1994, Church of Christ Commission, 1987; General Accounting Office, 1983; Arp & Boeckelman, 1994; Ringquist, 1995; McQuaid, 2000; Bullard, 2000; Ringquist, 2005; Mohai & Saha, 2007). This disparity is even more striking in the South which has had a history of racism and discrimination. (McQuaid, 2000; Bullard 2000). For example, in Louisiana, African-Americans are twenty percent more likely to live within four miles of an industrial site that releases toxins, forty-one percent more likely to live within two miles, and fifty percent more likely than Caucasians to live within one mile of a polluting facility (McQuaid, 2000).
Concrete evidence regarding racially based environmental discrimination was made apparent in 1971 when President Nixon's Council on Environmental Quality acknowledged that racial discrimination negatively affects the quality of environment among the urban poor (U. S. Council on Environmental Quality, 1971). Furthermore, a study by the U.S. General Accounting Office in 1983 showed that three-quarters of commercial hazardous-waste landfills in the southern regions of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee were located in predominantly African American communities (General Accounting...