Cities around New England have declared racism a public health crisis. Scholar-activist Katharine “Kat” Morris is especially interested in the intersection between racism, health and environmental justice -- something she talked about in her 2019 TEDxUConn talk. Morris noted that a fifth of Connecticut’s pollution is concentrated in five cities where the majority of the state’s people of color reside: Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Stamford and Waterbury.
When Morris lived in Bridgeport, she said the signs of pollution were visible.
“I noticed you can see the smog in the air any time I was driving anywhere,” she told NEXT in an interview. “I saw the incinerator; it wasn’t far from my home.”
Morris advocates organizing around climate change and environmental justice with the acronym L.O.V.E.
L - Listen to learn O - Organize with an open mind V - Value different perspectives E - Engage everyone in every possible way
She graduates with a master’s in public policy from the University of Connecticut this month.
This interview was featured in a recent episode from NEXT and the New England News Collaborative. Listen to the entire episode here.
