Presentation: California’s Environmental Justice Movement, Past and Present

Tracy Perkins will be in discussion with Gopal Dayaneni about the history and present of the Environmental Justice movements in California. They will look at the political and legal strategies to make healthy air, soil and water accessible for all communities. Prof. Perkins documented four decades of environmental justice activism in California in her 2022 book Evolution of a Movement.

Tracy Perkins is an associate professor in the Arizona State University School of Social Transformation. She specializes in social inequality, social movements and the environment through a focus on environmental justice activism. In addition to her academic writing, Perkins documents environmental justice activism for public audiences. Perkins previously served as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Howard University.

Gopal Dayaneni is a lecture in SFSU’s Race and Resistance Studies program. Gopal has been involved in fighting for social, economic, environmental and racial justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, speaking and direct action since the late 1980’s, and is a co-founder of the Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project.