BALTIMORE — The environmental justice movement must craft a long-term strategy to advance its goals independent of the presidential election cycle, a leading figure said Friday as advocates struggle to regroup from a withering wave of Trump administration rollbacks.
“We have to plan beyond a four-year plan and plan a 40-year plan that outlives any administration,” Robert Bullard, a Texas Southern University sociologist, declared during a keynote speech at a conference here gathering almost 700 activists, researchers, students and other participants both present and online. “We’re talking about building something that would last.”
Bullard, an author of 18 books who’s often described as the “father” of the quest to confront pollution’s disproportionate effects on people of color and low-income communities, also urged his audience to find allies “that are willing to stand into the breach during times like these and step up.”
His comments, greeted with a standing ovation, testified to the whipsawing impact of the last eight months.
