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 Profiles of Community Leaders: Ted Carrington has devoted much of his adult life to protecting
the rights of others through education and policy change
at the local, county and state levels.
"The plight of people of color and poor people has always been a concern of mine. Before I reached my teens I understood that racism in any form was wrong and I also understood that I must be active if I wanted to see an end to racism. Racism will end when there is equal justice under the law for all of us. Environmental injustice is particularly disturbing to me when we consider that the earth is a precious gift for all of us. We must do all that we can to care for the land we walk on, the water we drink and the air we breathe; simply put, we must care for the environment. "It is quite amazing to me that people don’t see the full connection that each of us has to one another. When people are not concerned about their neighbor’s environment that means they fail to realize that their neighbor’s environment and their environment are one in the same. "Environmental Justice for me means working with those who are often least able to help themselves for the good of everybody." 
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"Growing up in the Ironbound neighborhood
in Newark , I experienced firsthand the impacts of environmental
injustice. Although I felt a great sense of pride for my
hardworking, diverse community I could never shake the deep
sense of resentment about the degraded conditions we lived
in – the abandoned sites, foul odors, lack of greenspace..." |
He has held several
professional positions in the area of environmental justice,
most recently as Associate Fellow in the John S. Watson Institute
for Public Policy at Thomas Edison State College, where he
implemented a participatory action project called the “New
Jersey Urban Air Quality Education and Awareness Initiative” which
engaged youth, college students and community-based organizations
to monitor high concentrations of diesel air emissions in
urban centers. Ted complements this professional experience
with community activism. He currently serves as: Second Vice
President of the NAACP New Jersey State Conference, Chairperson
of the Environmental Justice Committee, Metuchen Edison Area
Branch of the NAACP 1 st VP and Member of the Coalition of
Black Trade Unionists’ (CBTU) Community Action and
Response Against Toxics Team (CARAT Team).