July 25, 2007

U-M professor presented with the Damu Smith Power-of-One Environmental Justice Award by the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice during a recent symposium in New Orleans

Bunyan Bryant, a prominent educator, social activist and pioneer in the environmental-justice movement, received national recognition on Oct. 20 for his personal contribution and dedication to environmental justice during a national symposium on the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University, which hosted the event in New Orleans on Oct. 19-21, presented Bryant, a University of Michigan professor, with the Damu Smith Power-of-One Environmental Justice Award. The award honors the late Damu Smith, an activist who advanced the cause of environmental justice and paved the way for the formation of the first-ever national network of Black environmental-justice activists.

In addition to Bryant, New Orleans City Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis and Robert Bullard, a sociology professor at Clark Atlanta University, also were honored at the symposium titled, "Race, Place and the Environment After Katrina: Looking Back to Look Forward."

"Recognition for this kind of work comes only a few times during a person's career, so I was very touched," says Bryant, a professor of natural resources and environment, and of urban planning. "I knew Damu Smith as a friend and to receive an award in his name meant a lot to me."

Bryant, who recently donated $100,000 to the School of Natural Resources and Environment's Environmental Justice Initiative, was cited for his leadership role in a widespread movement that led to then-President Bill Clinton's signing of Environmental Justice Executive Order 12898, which has impacted federal agencies and communities nationwide.

An environmental-justice activist in Ann Arbor and nationally for 34 years, Bryant helped to establish, in 1974, the school's Environmental Advocacy Program, the forerunner of its current Environmental Justice field of study, which he now coordinates. He also is the founder and director of the Environmental Justice Initiative, a research program targeted at helping formulate local and national environmental-justice policies.

"Bunyan's professional and personal dedication to the advancement of environmental justice has always been an inspiration and a call to action," says Rosina Bierbaum, dean of Natural Resources and Environment. "Issues of environmental justice are central to everything we do at this school and, as a school, we are proud Bunyan has been recognized in this way."

Bryant describes progress on environmental-justice issues over the past 15 years as "two steps forward and one step backward." In 1990, he co-organized the nation's first academic environmental-justice conference focusing on the links among race, class and environmental hazards. The conference led to a series of high-level policy meetings with Environmental Protection Agency administrators and eventually to the establishment of an EPA Office on Environmental Justice.

"We saw progress under the first George Bush and the Clinton administration," Bryant comments. "But under the present George Bush administration, there have been all kinds of cutbacks on environmental regulations that have impacted people's health and jobs."

Over the next four years, Bryant says he will concentrate on raising endowments for the establishment of an environmental-justice center and an endowed professorship at the University of Michigan, and for student scholarships. He also will redouble his efforts to educate people of color and low-income residents about the damaging psychological, physical and economic effects of environmental hazards, as well as natural disasters associated with global warming.

In addition, Bryant plans to continue his research and information-gathering on environmental-justice issues, in an effort to inform and influence policy makers at the local, state and federal levels.