First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit

The Environmental Justice Movement (EJM) is a confluence of social and environmental movements which deals with Environmental Justice In the early 1980s, environmental justice emerged as a concept in the United States.

It is difficult to pinpoint a particular date or event that launched the Environmental Justice Movement, as the movement grew out of various local struggles and events and out of a variety of other social movements.

The 1991 First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was probably the most important single event in the movement's history. The Summit broadened the environmental justice movement beyond its early anti-toxics focus to include issues of public health, worker safety, land use, transportation, housing, resource allocation, and community empowerment. The meeting also demonstrated that it is possible to build a multi-racial grassroots movement around environmental and economic justice.