Environmental (In)Justice in Rural Communities
Megan Munkacsy ·Environmental (In)Justice in Rural Communities
Sitting down to write this blog kept me paralyzed, staring at my screen for over an hour. Where do you start, when your topic is environmental justice in rural America? Racist violence? Redlining? Reconstruction? Should I scratch the surface of the disproportionate impacts of climate change on rural communities, or lead you towards a better understanding of the extractive industries that boom and bust small-town economies?
I will follow the most predictable path, and start at the beginning of America's reckoning with environmental injustices, when a majority Black community in Warren, North Carolina organized against the dumping of carcinogens along the local highway in 1982. I will start there because environmental justice has always been, and continues to be, a set of issues handicapping the quality of life in rural America, particularly the lives of Black and Indigenous people.
Rural communities in America tend to be older, and reliant on natural resource based or energy job sectors such as agriculture, fishing, and mining/gas extraction. They also have fewer resources, such as access to healthcare, generational wealth, access to a centralized government, and land ownership. In the 1920s, Black Americans owned over 14% of American farmland. Today, about 1.4% of American farmland is owned by Black Americans, due to the efforts by the government and the Klu Klux Klan to expropriate Black-owned farmland.
Episode 5: The Land of Our Fathers, Part 1
Episode 5: The Land of Our Fathers, Part 2
The 1619 Project by the New York Times goes in depth on the challenges facing Black farmers in America, and helps contextualize the historic factors of these injustices.
On the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the rural and racial components of environmental justice combine with the impact of global climate change to incubate a perfect storm of injustice. The Eastern Shore, particularly Dorchester County, prides itself as being the birthplace of the Underground Railroad - a story that when retold by white residents often omits the fact that Ms. Harriet Tubman was escaping the inhumane conditions of enslavement. This history has consequences still lived today, one being that Black communities, particularly in Dorchester County, are beginning to sink underwater. By 2100, the Eastern Shore of Maryland is expected to see up to 4 feet of sea level rise, a reality that is already flooding properties in low-lying communities.
Dr. Elizabeth Van Dolah, a post-doctorate at the University of Maryland and coordinator of the Deal Island Peninsula Partnership, specializes in the community aspects of marsh resilience on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Her recent work looks at the principle that all people are entitled to equal protection from environmental harms, and questions whether current approaches to managing coastal resilience appropriately encapsulate this right. Working with religious communities in three Eastern Shore counties, Dr. Van Dolah and her colleagues found that current resilience work in the area lacked culturally sensitive analysis and engagement with local communities, understanding of socioeconomic impacts of marsh restoration efforts, and information on political responses to climate adaptations in the region.
Lacking such understanding, but moving forward with state plans for coastal adaptation, is magnifying existing inequities in rural, coastal Maryland. Properties settled by newly-emancipated Black Americans in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century are losing value and becoming inhospitable as local marshes migrate upland into yards to escape the rising coastline.
The New Revived United Methodist Church in Smithville is a point of community gathering and faith, as well as the burial grounds of those same establishing ancestors of the 1880s. Built on marginalized lands prone to flooding even at its inception, the community has diminished over the decades from hundreds to now just two year-round residencies. Still, families with ties to the area continue to find spiritual and cultural anchoring in the church, and in 2018 nearly 200 members of original Smithville families gathered to protect the cemetery from flooding. Despite well-organized community efforts to raise awareness and receive assistance, no solution has been established to help the community protect their history from the increasingly rising waters.
The story of Smithville, and the untold stories of 80% of America's national shoreline where non-oceanfront, non-white, poor, rural communities reside, is just one example of how environmental injustices play out in rural United States. With the consequences of our carbon dioxide-based energy systems a reality of today's weather and climate, these stories will only become more common, and more dire. Approaching collaborations with rural, Black and Indigenous America must come now, and come from a framing of justice, reparation, and equal protection. Without this work, our coastlines and the communities they support will sink under the weight of hundreds of years of institutional neglect.
About the author
Megan Munkacsy
Megan Munkacsy is a master's student in the University of Maryland’s Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences, Environment and Society program. She works with Dr. Lisa Wainger of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. Meg is facilitating input from stakeholders throughout the Bay to develop a geospatial tool that presents a value-based hierarchy of policy options addressing the conflict between recovering submerged aquatic vegetation populations, an expanding oyster aquaculture industry, and other Bay uses.
Next Post > Facilitating a Great Barrier Reef partnership workshop in Brisbane
Comments
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Faith Taylor 4 years ago
I love the historical approach and refences to add context to the EJ movement
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Andrea M Miralles-Barboza 4 years ago
"Without this work, our coastlines and the communities they support will sink under the weight of hundreds of years of institutional neglect."
A powerful visual.
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Chelsea Richardson 4 years ago
Loved the addition of the "Land of Our Fathers" audio. Definitely a good listen! Good example of the racial injustice that occurred.
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Olivia Wolford 4 years ago
The statistic you shared on the declined percentage of farmland owned by Black Americans is such important context to understanding environmental precarity in rural spaces. It reminded me of an episode of a podcast called How To Survive the End of the World discussing the political power of Black-owned farms and land reclamation: https://www.stitcher.com/show/how-to-survive-the-end-of-the-world/episode/apocalypse-survival-skill-4-braiding-seeds-69075885.
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Taylor Gedeon 4 years ago
I really love how you described examples of environmental injustice from years ago and present day. Really cements the message that this is not new and has not been addressed.
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Katrina 4 years ago
Nicely done, Megan! Your blog highlights well the many different communities that meet at the impacts of rurality and sea-level rise. The words of elders like Mr. Cornish about the multifaceted role of many Black communities provide another reason for prioritizing the preservation and protection of these sites. Given the significance of the the church as well as Smithville to American history, I immediately wondered whether it had been nominated for or declared an historical landmark.
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Isabel Sullivan 4 years ago
This post well connected the past from the start of EJ to its current state. I also really liked your call to action at the end. As you convey, striving for EJ is a continuing struggle that should be met with unity now given the severity of sea-level rise.
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Peter 4 years ago
Yes, I agree! Climate change is a kind of environmental injustice. It stand on the shoulder of the natives and use their resources to do their own things. It is a sequence of part of people enforce another part of people.
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Peter 4 years ago
Yes, I agree! Climate change is a sequence of Environmental Injustice. It stand on the shoulder of natives and use their resources to do things. It is a responsibility of part of us but it is borne by all of us.
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Peter 4 years ago
I like the connection showed between climate change and EJ. Climate change is a sequence of 'standing on the shoulder of indigenous people' in some extent. It is a result of part of us but beared by all of us or beared another part of us.
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Amber Fandel 4 years ago
"80% of America’s national shoreline where non-oceanfront, non-white, poor, rural communities reside" - what a staggering statistic. This really emphasizes the significance of environmental injustices in rural areas and helps us understand why they have continued to be neglected, as those without political capital are rarely considered equitably.
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Jehnae 4 years ago
Nice work! I loved how you connect climate change to Environmental Justice. You tied the past to what is happening now!
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Amanda 4 years ago
I really enjoyed both the historical and contemporary framing. Thanks for all the resource links.
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Sarah 4 years ago
"Without this work, our coastlines and the communities they support will sink under the weight of hundreds of years of institutional neglect."
I noticed Andrea also posted about the concluding sentence and the power behind your words. The concluding sentence is one of my favorites to write as you want to make an impact on the reader before they leave the page. You did that magnificently. Well done!
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Ashley Silver 4 years ago
When you said the residents of Dorchester County, prides itself as being the birthplace of the Underground Railroad, that often white residents often omit the fact that Ms. Harriet Tubman was escaping the inhumane conditions of enslavement remind me of how the hundreds of years of slavery are brought up as foot notes in most history books.
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Shakira 4 years ago
Megan, I don't come across history and science being merged together too often, so I truly enjoyed you being able to do that in your blog. It was great that you proved how these issues are nothing new and have been repeated, in many ways, through out history. I also was able to access some of the articles posted, and those were also great reads. I appreciate you providing those sources.
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Imani Wilburn 4 years ago
This is such a great example of a blog! When I first read it I was extremely intimidated by how well this was written. I really love how you used history to describe the environmental justice issue. When you hear about the past, that is never the focus and it is often not thought of the way you have presented here. My favorite fact in this blog was how black Americans use to own 14% of farmland and now own 1.4% because of the actions of others trying to take away their land and rights. It is such a good connection made between the past and now and uses the past to make this issue more clear. I loved this!
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Nylah McClain 4 years ago
It does seem that tackling EJ in rural areas is hindered by the convenient avoidance of difficult truths and just the wide range of issues to look into. But you’ve been able to do it in a blog post by looking at the beginning of environmental injustice. If more established organizations wish to start implementing environmental justice, then I think that following your short example of looking into the environmental injustices is the right way to go.