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 Profiles of Community Leaders Valorie Caffee Valorie Caffee is Director of Organizing at the NJ Work Environmental Council, a coalition of labor and environmental groups working for “safe, secure jobs and a clean, healthy environment.” She chairs the Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, and is a GreenFaith Board member.
"I believe that striving to help people
obtain environmental justice is now part of my life’s
calling. This work is essential to overturning racial discrimination
and to guaranteeing that everyone lives, works, prays, plays,
and goes to school in a safe, healthy, clean and sustainable
environment. I feel very sad when I visit people who live
in polluted neighborhoods and see how their quality of life
is compromised. All of us have the right to enjoy the beauty
and life-affirming bounty of nature the Creator gave us,
and to experience the sacred in our natural environment." Ana I. Baptista "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.
When we’d take school trips to the suburbs, I was shocked
at how pristine everything looked and thought to myself – are
my classmates and I not worthy of this as well? This sense
of injustice fueled my commitment to the environmental justice
movement. At the time I didn’t know it was called environmental
justice. As a teenager I joined my first protests
of hazardous waste incinerators and I haven’t stopped
since. I started my academic career dedicated to traditional
environmental studies in Ecology, which later evolved into
an interest in public policy and urban studies. The environmental
justice problems I experienced in the Ironbound, I realized,
were not just connected to physical problems in the environment
but to economic, social and political problems facing communities
like the Ironbound throughout the world. Today I have come
full circle – I am completing my doctorate at Rutgers
University ’s School of Planning and Policy focused
on environmental justice policy making and I am working part
time as an environmental justice and planning coordinator
for the same organization that first invited me to join the
incinerator protests as a teenager - Ironbound Community
Corp. I still try to channel those youthful feelings of anger
into activism founded in compassion and a deep sense of justice." D. Kim Thompson-Gaddy
"My involvement in the Environmental Justice movement is about establishing networks and developing the next generation of Urban Environmental Leaders because neighborhoods and populations are being disproportionately exposed to multitudes of harmful substances at school, home, work and community. These are largely urban communities of color, low income and immigrants. The unhealthy environmental conditions that African Americans and minorities live in on a daily basis is an environmental injustice and it must be stopped! "In January of 2001, I became an environmental
justice organizer and I have a responsibility to educate
and develop the next generation of Urban Voices, who will
fight the “good fight” and remove the injustices
from our urban communities, one neighborhood at a time. We
have one earth and we all must do our part to be better stewards
of our land." Theodore R. Carrington 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..." |
When
asked why she's involved with the environmental justice movement,
Valorie replied, "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
words, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'
motivate me to include the struggles against environmental
racism and economic injustice in my lifelong commitment to
social justice activism. No group of people should be forced
to bear the disproportionate burdens of having incinerators,
landfills, sewage treatment plants, oil refineries, and other
polluters in their communities because of the color of their
members’ skin or income level. This is unfair and discriminatory.
I
just wanted to be part of something that could improve conditions
in my community. I was also heavily involved in the leadership
of my local Catholic Youth Group where environmental issues
were not considered much by city kids. The environment was
some foreign hippy issue - but in the context of social justice,
service and compassion, I found I could rally my colleagues
into action through clean ups and other local activities.
"As
a mother of three, member of First Baptist Church of Nutley
and youngest of seven siblings, I have always lived my life
with a belief that “If it was going to Be, It is up
to Me” and with this I live my life confronting environmental
and social injustices to make communities and life better
for African Americans. 
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).