A path-breaking environmental justice advocate is distancing himself from the Sierra Club, saying the environmental group broke a promise to help a Black community cope with flooding caused by a highway project.
Robert Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University, said in an article on his website he’s asked the Sierra Club to scrub his name from the club’s annual environmental justice award because of the group’s handling of the problem in Shiloh, Alabama.
Sierra Club President Ben Jealous visited Shiloh and promised to help find a lawyer for the community, Bullard wrote. That never happened, so Bullard helped the community find a legal representative, he said.
“During Black History Month this year, Shiloh community leaders expressed to me their disappointment with the Sierra Club ignoring them, not returning calls, emails and texts, and not securing them an attorney or supporting a lawsuit on their behalf,” he wrote.
