After Years of Racial Division, the Green Movement Gets Brown
by Sally John
The Daily Beast
September 21, 2014
For decades, the green movement has been split into two camps, divided by power—and race. Today’s climate march in New York changes that.
Up to 100,000 people are expected to participate in today’s People’s Climate March in New York City, which would make it the largest environmental march in world history, topping a Copenhagen rally in 2009. But the most significant strategic accomplishment of the march may have absolutely nothing to do with what happens at the event itself. Instead, the groundbreaking significance of the march has to do with the planning that went into it, as the historically divided factions of the environmental field have come together in an unprecedented way.
For decades, there have effectively been two strands within the environmental movement in the United States and worldwide. One is focused on policy. The other is focused on organizing and action. The former emphasizes pressing conservation and energy law reforms. The latter concentrates on stopping incinerators and mountain-top removal mining and other local environmental fights. One is fairly top-down and predominantly white-led. The other is mainly bottom-up and rooted in communities of color. One gets at least 85 percent of all U.S. foundation funding. The other gets the crumbs—and I bet you can guess which.
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