Neighborhood Self-Defense Against Environmental Racism

Black, Brown, and low-income neighborhoods have been racially zoned to disproportionately host toxic polluters along floodplains, highways, and switchyards. Downwinders at Risk, a local 30-year-old grassroots clean air and environmental justice nonprofit, is working with neighborhoods to reverse this racist zoning practice in Dallas.

This session will provide an overview of the origin of the Neighborhood Self-Defense Project (NSDP) within different Dallas communities. This includes the work in the Floral Farms community from the Shingle Mountain crisis ; the more recent Singleton Corridor plan in West Dallas that led to the formation of Singleton Unidos and the GAFs Gotta Go campaign; and the NSDP’s evolution to support a citywide coalition advocating for major land reform and policy change across Dallas.

You’ll come away with a better understanding of how neighborhood-based organizations can leverage local zoning and land-use policies to address the root causes of perpetual environmental racism.