Pollution is worse in racially divided communities than in racially integrated areas, harmful to whites as well as minorities, research shows.
Studies have linked segregation to exposure to higher amounts of air pollution, water pollution, and noise pollution, Kendra Pierre-Louis writes in the New York Times.
In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “The price that America must pay for the continued oppression of the Negro is the price of its own destruction.” And research in recent decades has shown that to be true:
- Residents of Memphis are exposed to more pollution than those living in less racially-divided Tampa.
- Unequal societies invest less in environmental policies, monitoring, and research.
As Dr. King noted, “Segregation is a cancer in the body politic.
Read Pierre-Louis’s full article:
