Forwarded by Darrell Gerber Kingfield in Mpls ----------------------------
Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota presents our 3rd annual Founder's Day Friday, October 21, 2005, 6:30 pm, Minneapolis Urban League (2100 Plymouth Avenue North) View the PBS movie "Fenceline: A Company Town Divided," which chronicles the struggles of Margie Richard and her neighbors against Shell Chemical Company in Norco, Louisiana, a company town in the middle of the Mississippi River's notorious "cancer alley". "Fenceline" reveals the deeper social reality in the struggle between industry and environment in the Mississippi Delta. It is persuasive evidence that in a racially and economically divided America, we don't all breathe the same air. Saturday, October 22, 2005 Fighting for our Future, Environmental Justice in Action: Children's Environmental Health All events held at: Minneapolis Urban League 2100 Plymouth Avenue North, Minneapolis "We won't be just talking; we'll be planning and organizing on the dangerous pollution which hits low-income children and children of color the hardest." FREE EVENT - DINNER PROVIDED Event will include: 10:00 am Registration begins 11:15 Opening speaker, Jesus Torres, a community organizer with Centro Campesino will talk about why we all must fight for childrens environmental health 12:30 - 4:45 Workshops on: * The Arsenic triangle in Phillips Neighborhood * Lead in our homes, which cuts our children's IQ and makes them more impulsive * Mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin, which the government is failing to protect us from * Pesticides: if it kills bugs and weeds, what is it doing to the poor migrant farmers who work in it? * Toxic Dumping in Somalia: International Environmental Racism plain and simple * Asthma: Spreading among Blacks like mad: Is it the air, our homes? Come see what you can do * Youth Organizing * Action steps, legislative initiatives 4:45 Dinner 5:30 Keynote speaker, Margie Richard, noted Fenceline activist will talk about her 30 year battle with Shell Chemical for justice for the people of the Diamond Community in Norco, LA., a historically Black community with elevated cancer rates, known as Cancer Alley. 7:00 Closing About our speakers: Jesus Torres is a community organizer with Centro Campesino where he coordinates the youth-organizing campaign. His work is centered on immigration and justice issues for farm workers. A native of Mexico, Torres and his family moved to Minnesota in 2001 with other migrant workers from Texas. Shortly after arriving in Minnesota, he met Victor Contreras, founder of Centro Campesino who introduced him to the world of social justice and change. He soon became the youth leader for Centro Campesino's Owatonna program called Club Latino. Torres graduated from the Organizing Apprenticeship Project in 2003. Margie Richard has been called the "The Rosa Parks of the Environmental Justice Movement". From her trailer in a small town in Louisiana, this retired schoolteacher took on the worlds 10th largest corporation, and third largest petroleum company, to save her community. Ms. Richard brought visitors to her trailer on the Shell fenceline and told them the story of how her community was being poisoned. She said it was God who opened the door and allowed her to take that message to a human rights conference in Geneva and environmental conferences in the Netherlands and South Africa. She brought bags of polluted air from her community to these international gatherings and demanded that Shell buy out the homes of her neighbors. The relocation campaign that she led clearly had the potential to become another media disaster for Shell. In September 2000, Shell offered to buy out half the properties on the two streets closest to their fenceline. Town residents were outraged: Did pollution coming from the plant stop after the second street, they asked? And what would happen to those left behind? In June 2002, after protracted negotiations Shell finally agreed to buy out all of the residents of Diamond who wanted to move. For her efforts, on April 19, 2004, Richard became the first African-American woman to win the Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots activism. EVERYONE WELCOME - BRING A FRIEND REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
