Tuesday, 22 Oct 2002
RESTON, Va.
The Second People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit starts tomorrow, and I'm on my way to Washington, D.C. Today, I am stopping over in Reston, Va., at the headquarters of the National Wildlife Federation. As an employee in the "field," I get the opportunity to connect with the headquarters staff via trips every six weeks.
This is a new role for me and feels quite different. For the last four years, my work at the federation was solely based in my community, the West Atlanta Watershed. I worked to protect water quality and ensure environmental justice at the grassroots level. I worked in a place that I care about and with people who inspire me. This summer, I received a promotion that requires me to do work at the national level. As the first national leadership development coordinator for the NWF, I am helping to build a strong, diverse, and effective grassroots constituency to win significant conservation victories and to strengthen and diversify the volunteer leadership of the organization.
Osborne talks to bigwigs about clean water.
In some ways, this feels far different from what I thought that I would be doing at this point in my life, but in others, it is exactly where I am supposed to be: learning to use more sophisticated strategies to pursue my goals; working to make sure that diversity in the environmental movement is embraced as a necessity and an asset; and learning how to be more effective in creating the winds of change. I am in a sense moving away from my scientific roots and working more on the organizing side of my skill set.
I've been trying to unite those two very distinct passions -- science and community organizing -- ever since I lived in Baton Rouge, La., near the area now called "Cancer Alley." Cancer Alley is the 100-mile strip between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that houses over 130 chemical, petrochemical, and pollution-generating facilities and has been identified by toxicologists as having the highest incidence of cancer, miscarriages, and birth defects in the country. My mother's diagnosis with breast cancer was my impetus to get involved in the environmental justice movement. Early on in my career (well, actually as a college student), I recognized the need for informed scientists who also understand the social, political, and economic dynamics that affect environmental issues. I am striving to be such a person. I am an environmental engineer by education and training, but I'm committing my life to engineering social change.
This is what I am trying to do in Atlanta, and I'm fortunate that I can remain here and work in my new position. Atlanta is definitely more than a place where I work. It is where I went to college, and now it is home. I am not leaving until I help to make this part of the world a better place. In my community, we are "forgotten stakeholders." We have to fight to get a seat at any decision-making table; we have to fight to make sure our voices are not stifled. We have to take every opportunity -- every letter we write, and every conversation we have -- to affirm our vision for a better community. And that is why I work all day and go to community meetings at night and on weekends and participate in the meetings after the meetings.
And this is also why it is important for me to go to this summit in D.C. I was a high school student during the first summit in 1991. I barely knew what environmental racism and injustice were. I knew that the air smelled bad and that the water tasted bad in Baton Rouge, but I did not know much else. Since then, my eyes have been opened. I have been awakened to the injustice waged on people all over the world and especially in my community -- especially when they are people of color or when they are poor. We need strong warriors to challenge the injustices. I just pray that I am strong enough to endure the fight.
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