User:Mtlang13/sandbox

CCSCLA: Meghan Lang, Arielle Gross, Eric Ortiz -Peer Review Draft-

Notes for moving forward:

- Figure out chronological order of programs

- try to find more outside citations for programs

- Try to get a picture! can we use pics from CCSCLA website if they are in a gallery on our page?

- possibly split up history secction and intro section into smaller headers: mission, location ,organizations, founders, etc.

- maybe make less wordy

- Is the environmental justice secction problematic? not encyclpedia enough? or relevant because of their role in propelling the EJ movement...

Peer Review Recommendations:

-It is a bit wordy. Maybe try and simplify it for your readers and check grammar especially in the intro.

-put the history section into paragraphs or into a more concise format

-There is a ton of good info. on specific programs but the order gets confusing

-Make sure that your sources are formatted properly. It'll be a quick fix but the red font shows you entered something in wrong.

-I like the idea of adding an image. It might help a first time reader get a better grip on what they're learning.

-Overall, it seems as if you all have a head start on this project. There was no key information left out but it needs to be better organized for the reader.

-first sentence of "Environmental Justice and CCSCLA" section is awk

-Generally tighten up writing, some words and phrases are unnecessary

-Writing overall needs some polishing to flow better and be more coherent. Also, should be read over again to check for use of biased language.

-Heavy reliance on primary sources. I feel like there are better sources to find than the guidestar profile to talk about the different programs.

Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles (CCSCLA)

Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles (CCSCLA) is a non-profit 501(c)3 community-based organization whose mission is to work for social justice and economic and environmental change within the South Central community. CCSCLA works to involve community members in identifying social, economic, and environmental areas of concern to them, and give them the tools necessary to engage with institutions- such as industries or political leaders- to enact change.

The designation of 501(c)3 signifies the organization’s area of concentration. This area consists of the Santa Monica freeway to the North, the Harbor Freeway to the West, Slauson Avenue to the South and Alameda to the East. It includes the Vermont Central neighborhood and Central Avenue Corridor. Since its founding, CCSCLA has expanded its work into other low-income neighborhoods, including Watts and Compton. At the time of its founding, CCSCLA’s area of concentration had one of the highest populations of African Americans in Los Angeles.

CCSCLA felt it needed to develop a base in order to enact substantial change. Starting in 1990, they began to organize block clubs throughout the Vernon-Central Area. To date, CCSCLA has been able to organize 57 block clubs. The primary issue of concern among all block clubs is the conditions of streets. Alleys in CCSCLA’s area of concern were considered to be the worst in Los Angeles in the organization's beginning stages.

Environmental Justice and CCSCLA

Born from the recognition that environmental hazards are unequally distributed across the United States, poor and colored communities in close proximity, and richer and white communities safely farther away (Wiki). This understanding has been brought about by dozens of studies completed in the last thirty years .  Environmental Justice as a political movement is constituted of events and strategies aimed at achieving social and economic justice in regards to the environmental hazards plaguing marginalized communities.  President Clinton’s Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice in 1994 adopted the work of the movement and created federal government policy.  The order required federal agencies to work to identify and address “disproportionately high adverse health or environmental effects of their policies on low-income people and people of color.” and “look for ways to prevent discrimination by race, color or national origin in any federally funded programs dealing with health or the environment.” Despite the recognition of the federal government and the adoption of the theories developed in response to the Environmental Justice Movement, the movement itself is largely characterized by grassroots activism.

Community based groups are fighting specifically against environmental hazards that are placed in close proximity to their communities that have negative health effects on their surrounding populations. CCSCLA is cited as a defining community activist group for the movement . CCSCLA set an example on how to mobilize a marginalized community by forming coalitions and networking within their affected community.  In this way CCSCLA was able to organize local business owners, lawyers, and legislators into a collective force invested in fighting for environmental justice. CCSCLA first mobilized in response to the proposed construction of the LANCER incinerator, and were pushed to use this community based approach because of the denial of support from mainstream environmental groups (MEGs). The Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund specifically refused to aid CCSCLA because CCSCLA was dealing with “a community health issue, not an environmental one.” Fueling this dismissal of a request for aid was the neglect of MEGs to acknowledge the theoretical understandings of the Environmental Justice Movement- that "social inequality and imbalances of power are at the heart of environmental degradation resource depletion pollution and even overpopulation." CCSCLA continues to affect community change today and in doing so they continue to challenge the narrow definition of environment that is currently utilized by many MEGs. CCSCLA accomplishes this by focusing on the intersectionality of race, concentrated poverty, social isolation, and environmental health.  CCSCLA comments on what the "environment" entails for them: "CCSCLA realize that the environment consists of more than just hazardous waste, chemicals, and air quality control; our environment is also the quality of our housing stock, the conditions of our schools and the safety of our neighborhoods"

Primary Interests

Affordable Housing

It is CCSCLA's belief that empowering and growing the community of South Central Los Angeles both economically and socially will in turn better the environmental conditions of the area. Their involvement in providing and protecting affordable housing started with their fight against the demolition of affordable housing for the construction of a school. They won the case and went on to start sponsoring and constructing affordable housing developments. CCSCLA is able to not only provide affordable housing units, but they also employ community members and local businesses during the construction and set up community programs within the developments.

Youth Development

CCSCLA invests in educating and benefiting the youth populations of South Central Los Angeles. Training and cultivating the youth population of the community is important for its sustainability. CCSCLA not only provides programs for youth recreation, but also education on the community issues, and programs for professional development. The most notable programs CCSCLA has created are: People Organizing for Workplace and Environmental Rights (POWER), The Entertainment Industry Training Program (EITP), and The Antes Columbus Youth Football Club in partnership with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches.

Environmental Health

Through its dealings and defeat of the LANCER project, CCSCLA members realized that there is more to the environment than simply hazardous waste, chemicals, and air quality control- "our environment is also the quality of our housing stock, the conditions of our schools and the safety of our neighborhoods. All of these factors effect how we are able to happily co-exist in the same community."

CCSCLA continues to work on environmental issues such as recycling, the cleaning of alleyways and streets, childhood lead poisoning prevention, storm drain protection, used motor oil recycling, teen worker rights, among others affecting community members' quality of life.

CCSCLA states that they will conduct further environmental awareness workshops as the need and topics present themselves.

Public Health

The environmental justice issues which CCSCLA is involved in raise several concerns along the lines of public health. Because of the close proximity of developments such as incinerators, plants, and/or factories in communities in south central LA, residents are at increased risk of developing health problems relating to prolonged exposure to pollution and toxins.

Part of CCSCLA's work within the community is to raise awareness and promote community engagement of environmental justice issues-- this involves not only environmental upkeep and well being, but the health of residents in these communities as well. CCSCLA hopes that in spreading awareness, this will also increase health literacy within communities involved.

Projects/Campaigns

CCSCLA v. LA Unified School District

Fabiola Tostado, Maria Perez, and Nevada Dove, three teenage students living in south central Los Angeles, stood up to protest the development and opening of Jefferson New Middle School, a new school planned to be built in their community. The school was projected to open in 1997-- the students were able to hold off its opening until 1998, and also shed light on many problems existing with the school’s location.

According to the research the teens did, the building site of the school was located on toxic land and was to be placed across from a former plant which was put on the Superfund cleanup list. Melanie Dove, mother of one of the teens Nevada Dove, was an organizer of Concerned Citizens of South-Central LA at the time, contributing to CCSCLA’s  involvement in the situation. The teens’ actions raised public awareness of the build on toxic land, and brought to light discrepancies in the building company’s plans. As a result, a new law was put into place which became effective January 1, 2000, stating: “henceforth, all school sites will be fully evaluated and made safe before school construction ever begins” . The Concerned Citizens helped shed light on over 12 other school sites around Los Angeles suffering from similar problems of officials’ oversight in constructing in polluted zones. Their efforts garnered the attention of their senator at the time, Tom Hayden (D- Los Angeles), who involved himself with the problem of building schools on contaminated grounds on a federal level.

The issue of building on polluted land is far from solved- the teenagers explained that students ended up attending the community middle school even after concerns were voiced, and experienced symptoms of the pollution negatively affecting their health. In this instance, they were not able to stop the LA Unified School District from the building of Jefferson New Middle School, but their influence extended beyond this instance. This situation brought the movement of environmental justice to light within the south central LA community, and set an empowering example for young people to have the ability to educate themselves and stand up to federal officials ignoring their concerns.

Affordable Housing Developments

Roberta Stephens Villas;  One Wilkins Place and Central Avenue Village Square, Gwen Bolden Manor, 1410 Apartments, Juanita Tate Legacy Towers (formerly Mt. Zion Towers) and Warwick Terrace Apartments

Alley Clean Up Program

Alleys in CCSCLA’s area of concern were considered to be the worst in Los Angeles around the time of its founding. They are used for illegal trash dumping, sites for drug trafficking and crime, and have little to no lighting. Block club participants submitted a petition to the city of Los Angeles demanding that alleys be cleaned, closed to traffic, and fenced off with access only to residents of these communities. This petition resulted in alley clean ups and closures that prevent crime and illegal dumping. CCSCLA also entered into a pilot program with the city of Los Angeles to train community residents, including those formerly incarcerated, to do alley clean up and pothole repair. Fifteen community residents were ultimately given full-time, permanent employment through this pilot program.

POWER

POWER, or People Organizing for Workplace and Environmental Rights, is a youth program sponsored by CCSCLA sine May of 1998. POWER is a joint program between Jefferson High School, Fremont High School, and the University of California at Los Angeles- Labor Occupational Safety and Health. CCSCLA worked in conjunction with UCLA-LOSH to create the program curriculum to effectively educate the students on the issues facing their community and to give them the skills to translate the environmental education they receive to action in the community. It is CCSCLA's aim to empower students to take charge of and be responsible for their neighborhood, workplace, school, and home.A notable achievement of the program was the forced closure of a contaminated school site for the entirety of a year while environmental remediation was conducted.  The youth received national acclaim for their efforts in TIME Magazine which published an article titled "Don’t Mess Around with the Toxic Crusaders".

The Antes Columbus Youth Football Club

ACYFC, founded through a partnership between CCSCLA and Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches (LMC) is an effort to bring the community together and provide a positive extracurricular activity for youth. For ages 5-19, the ACYFC provides uniforms, equipment, and team organization with no cost to the players. Taking the club a step further, CCSCLA also implemented training programs for sports related business and jobs including: venue management, broadcast recording and editing, concessions management, referee training, league administration, and manufacturing and retail of uniforms. In addition, CCSCLA has been able to provide two synthetic soccer fields for play in the Vernon Central community. In 2002 CCSCLA helped facilitate the Nike donation of a synthetic field to Ross Synder Park and facilitated the collection of resources to develop a field for George Washington Carver Middle School.

The Entertainment Industry Training Program (EITP)

Beginning in 1997, the mission of EITP is to get inner city kids (ages 13-18) acquainted with jobs in the entertainment industry. Kids work with professionals from the industry on a television or film project during workshops twice a week. Topics of the workshops include: producing, writing, directing, set design, production management, location scouting, props, music composing, hair and make-up design, wardrobe, art directing, script supervision, stage direction, camera operation, and video editing etc. Notable projects produced in the past include: public service announcement- “Choices”, music video for a neighborhood teen, POWER Youth Documentary, and Fame 2000- stage direction and video taping. The EITP program had been partially sponsored by DreamWorks SKG and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Healthcare for community members affected by pollution created from LANCER

Pollution created from LANCER and like projects has severely affected the health of members of South Central Los Angeles communities. Inhabitants of these communities are largely racial and/or ethnic minorities of low-income. Mothers in these communities explain that they and their children already face pre-existing health conditions unable to be addressed because of the cost and accessibility of the current healthcare system-- conditions such as asthma, influenza, cancer, heart disease, and/or pneumonia. The ailments of community members are magnified through the addition of the effects of trash-burning to the lives of south-central inhabitants.

References

@ bottom of the page

Project Pre-Draft

Outline for Wiki Page Draft

Intro (Arielle)

• Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles (CCSCLA) is a a nonprofit 501(c)3.  
• Mission
• Block clubs
• Geographic area
• Where they get their money

History (Eric)

>Organization and Location

• Founded in response to lancer 1985

Environmental Justice (meghan)

• Significant in terms of defining environment

Primary Interests

>overview, concepts

• Affordable housing (meghan)
• Youth Development (meghan)
• Environmental Health (arielle)
• Public Health (arielle)
• Industry Development (eric)

Projects/ Campaigns

>specific programs, Order chronologically  

• Lancer (eric)
• CCSCLA v. LA unified School District (arielle)
• Roberta Stephens Villas;  One Wilkins Place and Central Avenue Village Square, Gwen Bolden Manor, 1410 Apartments, Juanita Tate Legacy Towers (formerly Mt. Zion Towers) and Warwick Terrace Apartments (eric)
• Alley clean up program (arielle)
• POWER (Meghan)
• The Entertainment Industry Training Program (EITP) (Meghan)
• Healthcare for community members affected by pollution created from LANCER (arielle)
• Juanita Tate Market Place (Eric)

Controversy/Criticisms(?)

• Possibly the community garden that took over the LANCER site

Outline of Collected Information and Ideas

Outline for Wiki page: 

Intro (before the subtitles) 

- How the organization is constructed (non profit, constituted of 57 block clubs- idk what a block club is tho)

Possible pictures: figure out if we can use stuff from CCSCLA photo Gallery http://ccscla.org/photo-gallery/ 

Contents: 

- Origin story / Organization and Location

CCSCLA came about surrounding LANCER/like projects-- specifically, members of the community formed a joint multiracial/multiethnic coalition to block construction of a municipal solid waste incinerator (Bullard)  

- Environmental Justice 

Significance to movement 

The fight against LANCER made CCSCLA realize that the environment consists of more than just hazardous waste, chemicals, and air quality control; our environment is also the quality of our housing stock, the conditions of our schools and the safety of our neighborhoods. ← a lot of the stuff I read (on annotated bib) was citing CCSCLA as bringing this idea to the enviro justice movement. 

Projects/ Contributions   

- LANCER

After a two year fight from 1985 to 1987, CCSCLA defeated the $535 million bond issues sponsored by the City of Los Angeles which would have allowed for the development of the LANCER Municipal Waste Incinerator to be built in the South Central community.

-----Incorporate court ruling, newspaper articles from annotated bib

- Housing projects 

CCSCLA v. LA unified School District on constructing new school by demoing affordable housing - CCSCLA won 

This is kind of separate from housing but is what spurred their housing development 

-----Housing developments Program 

Roberta Stephens Villas;  joint venture project between CCSCLA and Canaan Housing Corporation (a subsidiary of Second Baptist Church). Beyond creating the development they also implemented community programs (find citations or evidence of)

CCSCLA on their own: One Wilkins Place and Central Avenue Village Square, Gwen Bolden Manor, 1410 Apartments, Juanita Tate Legacy Towers (formerly Mt. Zion Towers) and Warwick Terrace Apartments (Maybe we can hyperlink google map locations for these developments)

 (relevent info from CCSCLA website: need to checkout and find other citations for).

CCSCLA has received financial assistance with its housing development activities from the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC)/California Equity Fund, the City of Los Angeles, the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, the State of California Housing and Community Development Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Home Loan Bank Affordable Housing Program and private banks

On all CCSCLA construction projects we coordinate employment opportunities between contractors, subcontractors and community residents. 

One Wilkins Place housed the printshop job training center in partnership with CCSCLA, Trade Technical Community College and Abraham Freeman Occupational Center. Students from both Trade Technical and Abraham Freeman were able to work in the job training arena and receive work experience and credits.

- Alley clean up program

There was a petition to the City among the block club participants demanding that the alleys be cleaned, closed to traffic and fenced off with access only to residents.  This petition resulted in alley clean ups and closures that prevent crime and illegal dumping.  

Pilot Program:  CCSCLA also entered into a pilot program with the City of Los Angeles to train community residents, including formerly incarcerated, to do alley clean up and pot hole repair.  Fifteen community residents were ultimately given full-time, permanent employment through this pilot program. 

*Find evidence of these 

- Youth Development 

POWER: In May of 1998, CCSCLA sponsored a youth project called People Organizing for Workplace and Environmental Rights (POWER), a collaboration between two local high schools, Jefferson High School and Fremont High School, and the University of California at Los Angeles-Labor Occupational Safety and Health.

 P.O.W.E.R. was able to keep a contaminated school site closed for one year while environmental remediation was conducted.  The youth received national acclaim for their efforts:

LA Times article by Levine: Jefferson New Middle School- 3 teens in South Central community protested the building of the new middle school because the site was found to be located on toxic land/was to be placed across from a former toxic dump

One child’s parent, Melanie Dove, was an organizer of CCSCLA, which is how they became involved in the effort

New law put in place following the teens’ activism stating: “henceforth, all school sites will be fully evaluated and made safe before school construction ever begins.” (effective Jan. 1, 2000)

Helped shed light on over 12 other LA school sites suffering from similar issues 

garnered the attention of their senator at the time, Tom Hayden (D- Los Angeles), who involved himself with the problem of building schools on contaminated grounds on a federal level

 CCSCLA and UCLA-LOSH developed a curriculum for the students to learn about issues facing their community and to implement the environmental education they learn. Students learned basic computer skills and, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Power Point programs. Try to find actual ciriculum online to cite 

The Entertainment Industry Training Program (EITP): sponsored partially by DreamWorks SKG and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The program has been featured on CNN’s “Turner Entertainment Report,” other local television and radio news broadcasts, Daily Variety, the Los Angeles Sentinel, The Wave, and the Los Angeles Times. ← def can cite these as sources 

 The purpose of EITP is to acquaint inner-city youth (ages 13-18) with jobs behind the scenes in the entertainment industry. In the process, students learn about the correlation between their schoolwork and getting those jobs. Participants work under the supervision of industry professionals on a television and or film project. Workshops are held twice a week. 

Classes include: producing, writing, directing, set design, production management, location scouting, props, music composing, hair and make-up design, wardrobe, art directing, script supervision, stage direction, camera operation, and video editing etc. ← Try to find curriculum online 

Projects that have been produced in the past include: – Public service announcement- “Choices” – Music video for a neighborhood teen – POWER Youth Documentary – Fame 2000- stage direction and video taping. ← Try to find these PSAs to hyperlink 

- Environmental/ ecological concerns 

CCSCLA was the first African-American environmental organization in Southern California and continues to work on environmental issues such as recycling, cleanliness of our alleys and streets, childhood lead poisoning prevention, storm drain protection, used motor oil recycling, teen worker rights and any other issues which are adversely affecting our quality of life. 

*This section really needs some help and research, try to do some digging 

**Some of the other things might go under here instead of other places      

- Health concerns

Healthcare for community members affected by pollution created from LANCER and like projects

Predisposal of people of color to certain conditions because of the place in which they are living 

healthcare affordability; Racial and ethnic minorities’ access to care 

Agency (Peeples) 

Conceptualizes neighborhood as a “physically inhabited place of contamination” 

Relative value (or lack thereof) of community inhabitants 

Quality of place-- designated based upon type of people living there (white vs. POC space, and how each of those types of communities are subsequently dealt with)

Economic Contributions 

CCSCLA understanding the great need for access to capital, in association with the Black Employees Association formed the South Central People’s Federal Credit Union that was later folded into the Watts Credit Union. ← figure out more about this and what this means for them as a non-profit- where are they getting funding from? 

Juanita Tate Market Place:  CCSCLA set about to develop a grocery store-anchored shopping center in the community.  CCSCLA put together a team, including Regency Centers and Infinity Redevelopment and responded to a Request for Proposals from the Community Redevelopment Agency to develop an 80,000 s.f. shopping center at the corner of Slauson and Central Avenues.  That shopping center – the Juanita Tate Marketplace – is scheduled to open in 2014. ← figure out if it did, where the heck do they get all this money from?  ← also maybe this should go under a different sub heading/ get rid of this subheading all together?

References 

(Wikipedia should automatically generate this as we create citations)

Annotated Biblography

Agyeman, J., Bullard, R., & Evans, B. (2003). Towards Just Sustainabilities: Perspectives and Possibilities . In Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World (pp. 323-332). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World is clearly an anthology or textbook created for an environmental studies course interested in the sustainability efforts across the world and the pitfalls “western” environmentalism has when applied to “non-western” nations and even in their own.  In the chapter “Towards Just Sustainabilities: Perspectives and Possibilities” there is a subheading, Justice and Sustainability: Transforming the Participants, where the authors argue that environmental justice activists often become politicized towards sustainability.  They use CCSCLA as an example of this trend.  Environmental justice activists tend to move beyond solving a problem to stopping the problem from occurring in the first place.  They do this usually through policy reform and lobbying.

The authors cite how CCSCLA began as a grassroots organization, but generated so much support by forming coalitions and networking within their affected community.  That way they got local business owners, lawyers, and legislators on their side and invested in their cause.  By nature environmental justice organizations stem out of affected communities, and are able to garner widespread communal support. The authors attribute the commonality of a politicized stance to sustainability in environmental justice activists to this.

Boyarsky, B. (1990). Looking to the Next Election Day. LA Times.

The CCSCLA is not only known for their influence to prevent the construction of a waste incinerator. The coalition had a strong drive to increase political involvement of citizens. Since 1984 they have been trying to increase voter turnout for the predominantly African American and Latin American community. Many of the local elections were being won with a few thousand votes so increasing voter turnout could actually sway the election. In 1988 there was a 4% increase of voters in areas where groups went and conducted personal “get out on vote” operations.

Brown, D.E. (1999). Don’t Mess Around with the Toxic Crusaders. Time. 153 (16), 56.

This is an article from Time following three teenage members of CCSCLA campaigning against a new public school in LA from opening for concern over its proximity to a former refrigeration factory. At the time this article was written the three students were still in school but not attending the school in question. They lived near the new school and were familiar with the area but campaigning on behalf of students, teachers, and faculty that were going to be located at Jefferson Middle School. Jefferson was going to be the first new, public school opening in the Southern LA area in 30 years. It was going to mostly service low income, minority students and although a new school would be good for the area, it was being built on the former site where refrigeration parts had been manufactured. The concern over the exposure to students to residual toxins was the driving force behind their campaign to ensure students had access to safe learning environments.

Bullard, R.D., Lewis, J., Chavis, Jr., B.F. (1996). Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. Sierra Club Books. (pp Xii-22). San Francisco, California.  

This work is an entire novel devoted to discussing the environmental injustices which exist in low-income and racial/ethnic minority communities. It discusses the implications of these communities’ reduced legal protection and vigilance, as well as their representation in policy-making. Bullard, the editor, makes the claim that this unequal representation is a product of geographic location, race/ethnicity, and/or income level. The problems plaguing these communities are intensified in urban areas, in contrast to suburban ones.

This source is a compilation of several writers on the topics covered throughout the novel. While the entirety of the book is not included in online format, the first chapter and summaries of all additional chapters were available. One chapter of the work (11) is devoted to discussing the actions of the CCSCLA. It is written by Cynthia Hamilton, a political scientist. She uses an eco-feminist lens to examine the experiences of the African American women who were led to develop CCSCLA. The organization’s founding came about as a collective effort to block construction of a municipal solid waste incinerator. CCSCLA as a coalition was able to stop the city-sponsored incinerator project- known as LANCER (Los Angeles City Energy Recovery). Hamilton attributes their success in this situation to the strengths of multiracial and multiethnic coalitions.

2011. Concerned Citizens of South Central LA v. City of Los Angeles. FindLaw.

In 2011 a court ruling found that CCSCLA had breached a contract relating to a clay soccer field that was built by the group. THe field was not in complinace with city code under their agreed contract and the city of LA sued the group awarding the city over $4 million. Their was controversy in the ruling as the city was negligent in their oversight of the field’s construction and the CCSCLA had, at the time, filed for appeal. I think this is interesting to include since it reveals legal controversies that can occur to these social groups that ultimately are trying to benefit the community but also must proceed under appropriate legal actions.

Guenther, J. (2010). Proposed Shopping Center Slogs Towards Finish After 20 years. Intersections South LA.

After an ongoing developing project that has been in the planning process for 20 years, a shopping center named after the CCSCLA founder Juanita Tate is being built in a part of LA that was in desperate need of a shopping center. The neighborhood was considered a food desert with limited access to healthy foods for local residents.This article is a solid source in that it gives the history of CCSCLA’s founding, controversies, and current events. Concerned Citizens plays a significant role in Southern LA housing, owning several hundred units and $50 million in estates. Original the organization was formed to fight the construction of a trash incinerator. At the time this was written, the organization was navigating the legal system to decide the course of action for building this proposed shopping center. It contains testimony from state and CCSCLA officials with their biased views directly quoted. It is an interesting article  because it does not paint either the government or organization in particularly good light.

Note: the shopping center was built and still exists today.

Levine, B. (2000). ‘Toxic Crusaders’ Aren’t Afraid of a Good Fight. Los Angeles Times. (pp1-3).

Levine is a staff writer for the LA Times. She does not come from a place of expertise in the environmental justice movement, but is reporting recent unfolding events in a community of south-central Los Angeles, California. This article is catered to the general public, but in a way that is helping to shed light on the environmental justice movement- specifically involving safety of school sites. This work, while it is not as focused on the Concerned Citizens of South-Central LA (CCSCLA) themselves per se, demonstrates their involvement in environmental justice actions taken to better the surrounding community.

Three teenagers living in south central LA, stood up to protest the opening of a middle school in their community; a problematic project because, according to the research the teens did, the building site was located on toxic land and was to be placed across from a former plant which was put on the Superfund cleanup list. Melanie Dove is a mother of one of the teens, and organizer of Concerned Citizens of South-Central LA, causing CCSCLA to get involved in the situation. As a result of raising public awareness and spotting discrepancies in the building company’s plans, a new law was put into place (effective January 1, 2000), stating: “henceforth, all school sites will be fully evaluated and made safe before school construction ever begins.” The Concerned Citizens helped shed light on over 12 other school sites around Los Angeles suffering from similar problems of officials’ oversight in constructing in polluted zones. Their efforts garnered the attention of their senator at the time, Tom Hayden (D- Los Angeles), who involved himself with the problem of building schools on contaminated grounds on a federal level. The issue discussed is far from solved- the girls explained that students ended up attending the community middle school even after concerns, and experienced symptoms of the pollution affecting their health- but they certainly brought the movement of environmental justice to light in the community, and set an empowering example for young people to also have the ability to educate themselves and stand up to the federal officials ignoring their concerns.

Peeples, J.A. (2003). Trashing South Central: Place and Identity in a Community-Level

Environmental Justice Dispute. Southern Communication Journal, Vol 69, Issue 1, (pp 1-11).

Peeple’s article comes from a more academic background than other sources used (i.e. the LA Times article). Like the articles we have been reading for class, she cites other environmental justice writers to back up her claim. Her article discusses the placement of an incinerator in a south-central Los Angeles community. The main focus of her article, and overall argument, however is the conceptualization of place and identity (insiders/outsiders, good/bad, “othering” etc.), community activism which arose from this issue, and environmental toxins and how we interact with them/attempt to dispose of them in our environments.

In discussion of the placement of the incinerator in the low-income, south-central community, CCSCLA conceptualized the neighborhood as a “physically inhabited place of contamination.” The group had testimonials of women in the community, explaining the conditions they and their children already faced, and were unable to address because of their problems with cost/the healthcare system: “a child's asthma, a parent's influenza, or the high rate of cancer, heart disease, and pneumonia in this poverty-stricken community.” The ailments of these people would only be magnified by adding the effects of trash-burning to the lives of south-central inhabitants. In sharing the stories of members of this community, the CCSCLA was hoping to demonstrate that this low-income, minority community was already being faced with the burdens of environmentally unjust institutions- targeting them because of their relative value (or lack thereof) and quality of place establish based upon the type of inhabitants living there.

Rogers, H. (2006). Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. New York: New Press.

Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage is an expose book written to inform the reader on the reality of waste management in our country.  Rogers writes on the complicated issues associated with waste production and management.  The first half of the book is related to how we normalize waste creation and allow for the “waste stream” to be rationalized, while the second half analyzes the approaches to management our country has and is taking and the environmental effects associated with them.  Important to our project, Rogers analyzes the push for incinerators by the EPA (who believed them eco-friendly due to the scrubbers that could be placed on the smokestacks to filter out harmful toxins) and specifically sites CCSCLAs push back against LANCER in Los Angeles.  This account provides the technical information on how incinerators actually work and what their negative and positive attributes are.  Rodgers provides us with the information to situate what LANCER actually could have done to the surrounding community.  

Winton, S. (2010). Concerned Citizens: Environmental (In)Justice in Black Los Angeles. In Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities (pp. 343-359). New York, NY.

Winton utilizes over fifty sources in her chapter to detail how CCSCLA was initially founded, the impact it had in Los Angeles, and greater impact it had in fueling the environmental justice movement that began to sweep the nation.  Winton’s piece is a chapter in a book titled “Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities”.  This book includes work from other scholars and could be likened to the book chapters we read for class; written by professors or PhD holders on a specific issue that could be taught in a class, but also accessible to the public (if they are interested in picking it up).

Winton specifically speaks to how CCSCLA was able to mobilize their community and fight back against the construction of LANCER without the help of mainstream environmental groups (MEGs), like the Sierra Club- who is specifically quoted in refusing to aid CCSCLA because they were dealing with “a community health issue, not an environmental one”- or the Environmental Defense Fund.  Winton accredits CCSCLA for redefining what the “environment” entailed.   

Possible enviornmental justice group articles:

• Children's Enviornmental Health Network (CEHN)

"CEHN works to promote the protection of all children from environmental hazards. Children living poverty and/or from racial/ethnic communities may suffer not only more frequent and more direct exposures to environmental hazards, but exposures to many more of the toxic chemicals and other pollutants that pose risk to human health.  These children often live in areas which traditionally have been distinguished by toxic-waste landfills, power plants, heavy industry, and heavy pesticide use.  Children in those communities are often placed at multiple risk for illness due to poor or inadequate housing, poor nutrition, and limited access to health care, combined with potentially damaging environmental exposures."

• Surfrider Foundation

not sure if this counts as environmental justice, but they do a lot of work on creating more public beach acess points (areas usually closed off for private clubs though their located in community areas- usually maginalized communities are blocked from beach access). They also fight against off shore oil drilling and water pollution. This is sort of a shamless plug, I just really love them.

• Center for Health, Envioronment & Justice (CHEJ)

"The Center for Health, Environment and Justice has been on the front line in the fight for environmental health for 35 years. We train and support local activists across the country and build local, state and national initiatives that win on issues from Superfund to climate change."

 Training Notes

Paragraph: This helps you set the style of the text. For example, a header, or plain paragraph text. You can also use it to offset block quotes.

A : Highlight your text, then click here to format it with bold, italics, etc. The "More" options allows you to underline, add code snippets, and change language keyboards.

Links: The chain button allows you to link your text. Highlight the word, and push the button. VisualEditor will automatically suggest related Wikipedia articles for that word or phrase. This is a great way to connect your article to more Wikipedia content. You only have to link important words once, usually during the first time they appear. If you want to link to pages outside of Wikipedia (for an "external links" section, for example) click on the "External link" tab.

Cite: The citation tool in VisualEditor helps format your citations. You can simply paste a DOI or URL, and the VisualEditor will try to sort out all of the fields you need. Be sure to review it, however, and apply missing fields manually (if you know them). You can also add books, journals, news, and websites manually. That opens up a quick guide for inputting your citations. Finally, you can click the "re-use" tab if you've already added a source and just want to cite it again.

• Bullets: To add bullet points or a numbered list, click here.

Insert: This tab lets you add media, images, or tables.

Ω The final tab allows you to add special characters, such as those found in non-English words, scientific notation, and a handful of language extensions.