“Champions” features current and historic figures who can inspire the struggle for a worker- and climate- safe world.
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Lois Gibbs was born in a blue-collar area of Grand Island, NY; her father worked in steel mills and her mother was a housewife. After she graduated high school she married chemical worker Harry Gibbs, had two children, and moved to Love Canal. In 1987 she discovered that her two previously healthy children developed unusual health issues. She then discovered that the local school was built on a toxic waste dump.
Gibbs created a petition and went door-to-door to gather support, but the local school board refused to take any action. She talked with other parents and they started the Love Canal Parents Movement. They petitioned New York State, which eventually closed the school and purchased homes close to Love Canal. The Love Canal movement raised Gibbs and the issue of toxic waste sites to the center of national attention, leading to the passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act – the “Superfund” – which provides for cleanup of toxic waste sites throughout the US.
In 1981, Gibbs formed the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, a grassroots environmental crisis center that has provided information, resources, technical assistance and training to community groups around the nation. It seeks to form strong local organizations to protect neighborhoods from exposure to hazardous waste. It recently became a project of the People’s Action Institute.
Gibbs’s initially defined her role as a mother fighting to protect her children’s health. She says that many doubted her ability to be effective. Her own mother told her, “You’re forgetting you’re just a housewife with a high school education.”
That never stopped her.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Gibbs
Love Canal: My Story by Lois Marie Gibbs
For more on the Center for Health, Environment and Justice today: https://chej.org