Catherine Coleman Flowers on the Future of Environmental Justice Under Trump

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Bianna. Catherine Coleman Flowers, thank you so much for joining us.

CATHERINE COLEMAN FLOWERS: Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: Can I just start with learning a little bit about you? you’ve been a high school teacher, you were in the Air Force at one point. How, how would you say you got started as a, I don’t know even, I don’t wanna yet say environmental activist. You actually started when you went home to Alabama and you were working on sanitation, right?

COLEMAN FLOWERS: Yes. But my, I think my development as an environmental activist started long before then. You know, it was growing up in Lowndes County, Alabama. Growing up as a country girl. I think that anyone that grew up in a rural community is an environmental activist. You are an environmentalist. You have to learn how to live with the land. You have to learn how to deal with the changing weather. All of those things. What the growing season is, all of it. I just remember in, in my book “Waste,” my earlier book, I talked about that and I talked about “Poor Richard’s Almanac” that people use to kind of predict something about, you know, the growing seasons when the plant sees and all of that. And I grew up growing, walking among corn fields. And even now I still pay attention to whether or not I’m in an area where I see a lot of vegetation and I don’t see bugs and I don’t see butterflies, that I question that. You know, why aren’t there birds here in places where there are lots of trees? So that was my coming of age. And I think that the environmental, the activism part on the environmental side happened later, after I became a teacher, moved back to Lowndes County and the Montgomery area and found out that there’s a connection between all of this.

MARTIN: One of the other reasons that you come to public attention is, you have been calling attention to is the fact that when there are kind of municipal systems, often they are placed in communities of color. And then there are health effects for the people who live nearby that sometimes are not accounted for or they’re not maintained as well as they could and should be and then there are health effects. Or when you have extreme weather events and the systems are overwhelmed, guess who are the people who are most affected? You know –

COLEMAN FLOWERS: Yeah, let’s look at Jackson Mississippi. It, when the water pressure – and I write about this in my new book, “Holy Ground.” I happened to go to Jackson, Mississippi just prior to going to the conference of parties on climate change in Dubai. And I was able to make a comparison between Jackson, a place where the mayor said it is that way because of the lack of investment or disinvestment, and Dubai, which is a, which is a country – or a city in a country that is, that is, water is scarce, you know. And, but at the same time, because of the investment in Dubai, it’s a world class city. Whereas you go to Jackson, when they had the homecoming, when Deion Sanders was the coach of the ja – of the team there at Jackson State, a lot of people came to the homecoming ’cause the team was winning.

But the wa – the mayor warned the residents that the pressure, the water pressure would go down. When the water pressure goes down, they can’t flush their toilets. People don’t see the connection there. And we are trying to show that connection. And the connection is this is a capital city of a southern state that is very red. However, the, in the capital, the disinvestment is being shown up through the lack of investment in its infrastructure. And certainly the people are suffering because of the water issues that have come about because of that lack of investment.

MARTIN: You’re from Alabama, from Lowndes County, had some adventures, went home to, you know, do your thing. You start working on economic development and you realize, well wait a minute, businesses aren’t gonna come here ’cause the infrastructure isn’t there. People aren’t gonna come where there isn’t like consistent sewage systems and you know, water systems. But when did you start to think to yourself, this isn’t just a matter of this particular place and this particular time that this is kind of a bigger issue.

COLEMAN FLOWERS: When other people started reaching out to us and telling us they were having the same problem. That’s when we realized it was a bigger issue. And we also did a house to house survey locally where we went from house, house to house in Lowndes County. And where we thought people were res, would be resistant, they were not resistant. They started telling us, from one example is one of our surveyors, she was afraid to go into this community because it was predominantly white, and she was afraid that if she went there, she would not be well received. So when she went there, she went with a sheriff deputy. And when she went to this person’s house and she started taking the survey, he started calling all of his neighbors ’cause they were having the same problems and saying, you need to talk to her.

So it is a problem, although recently it’s been characterized as a DEI issue. It’s not a DEI issue. White people in Lowndes County have the same problem. There are people in all 67 counties in the state of Alabama, have the same problem.  So we are hearing from around the country and indeed around the world where people were having these same issues. And that’s how we realized that this was a much bigger problem than just what was happening to poor people in Lowndes County. They were the first ones to speak out about it, but they’re not the only ones that are dealing with the issue.

MARTIN: And one of the points that you have been making in recent years is that with climate change, with extreme weather events, people who’ve never had to deal with these issues before are dealing with them now. Why is that?

COLEMAN FLOWERS: Because the water tables are rising. That’s one of the reasons why. And when they get all of this rain at one time, because now we’re having like big delugeous rains. And right now we’re under extreme weather warning in my area. And with that will come rain. People that are on septic systems, that’s when they expect to have problems. ‘Cause when all these rain comes down the ground gets saturated, that’s gonna force the, the gravity forces their fluid back into their home. I have even heard from people that have new homes that are saying the same thing. The one common denominator that I hear a lot is that when a lot of rain comes down, they have a problem.

Then we’re also seeing in places where people have, are experiencing sea level rise. Like in Florida. I went to a conference in Florida, I thought I would be the only one talking about failing septic systems. And everybody that spoke before me was talking about it as well. Throughout the Miami Day County area, they built lots of communities on septic systems and they are failing as well because of sea level rise.

I think another issue that people don’t talk about is salt water intrusion, where salt water is coming into areas. In Lowndes County, you have to dig below a thousand feet in some areas to get below salt salt water. But that’s not factored into the design. So the big problem, I believe, is the design. The designs are not working properly. People designed them years ago, they don’t want to change the design. They make money off of ’em because once they feel you gotta go and pay more money to replace it with another design, that’s going to also fail. And we need to do something about that.

MARTIN: It does seem as though you and others like you who’ve been working with you had been making progress. I mean, you’ve been working for years to expose the fact and to work on the fact that, there are a number of rural communities in Alabama who still live with raw sewage in their yards because of inadequate, you know, facilities. And that led to this historic federal settlement to fix those conditions. But now the Trump administration has abruptly terminated the agreement. The administration, for example, said that the Alabama wastewater settlement was an “illegal DEI policy.” What do you, what do you make of that? Like how do you, how do you respond to that?

COLEMAN FLOWERS: I think that it was mischaracterized and I also have extended an invitation to President Trump himself to come and see it for himself. And I can take him to the homes of black and white families that have raw sewage on the ground. And I challenge them to fix it. That’s my response to it. And I think that the way we deal with this is to keep raising these issues and letting people know that it exists and who’s impacted by it and it’s impact. And people are being impacted around the country. Everywhere I go, people come and talk to me, whether I’m in a red area or a blue area, usually I’m in red areas to come and tell me about the situations that they’re living in. That they’re living in the same, with the same issue.

I, in the book I write about Senator Tuberville. And I had to testify before a committee that the Senate had, Senator Booker’s people invited me to testify about the wastewater problem. And they were looking at the farm bill and extending the amount of money for the farm bill to use to put into rural communities to address this issue. And what was interesting is that most of the people that showed up at their hearing were members of the GOP. They were GOP senators because their areas are the ones impacted by this. And the person who was leading that particular committee on the senate side, on the Republican side with Senator Tuberville, and he and Senator Booker actually worked together on trying to increase those funds. But part of the problem was because of the divisions. There were people on the Democratic side that refused to support it because of Tuberville.

I think when we look at these kinds of issues, it shouldn’t be partisan. These are people issues. We shouldn’t throw the communities that are suffering under the bus because we don’t like the person whose name is on the bill, if the bill is a good bill and it gives them what they need in order to get out of those situations. And that’s one of the things that I’ve tried to do as well.

When I first started doing this work, when I went into Lowndes County, my home county doing this work in 2002, the person that went with me was Bob Woodson, Robert Woodson. Robert Woodson is a conservative Republican, Black Republican. But he cared about his communities and he still cares about his community. And it doesn’t matter whether the people in the community vote democrat or republic. They don’t need to have raw sewage on the ground. They are Americans and should be treated as such no matter who’s in the White House.

MARTIN:  But that makes me wonder whether, in hindsight though, do you think it is a mistake or was a mistake to kind of make these social justice issues when that seems to have opened the door for people to dismiss them now that the leadership of the country has changed?

COLEMAN FLOWERS: I don’t think that it was a mistake. I think it brought it to the attention of this nation. I think that going forward, however, I think we should be clear that this is not an issue that impacts only one race or one group of people. That it impacts everyone and how it impacts everyone. I think that we should make sure that we get, that we educate people so they can understand that, which is the reason why I offered the invitation for the president and his staff to come and see it for themselves. Because once you see that, you can’t unsee it. Because it makes America, I mean, I, I keep seeing all the signs about how America is back. We never dealt with this problem in the first place. We need to address it 

MARTIN: Well, to that end though, I mean this administration has been aggressively rolling back a number of policies of the prior administration, including you know, he’s exited the Paris Climate Agreement again, he’s slashed clean energy subsidies, he’s, you know, empowered the Department of Justice to block state climate laws. And one of the things you keep pointing out, and you point out in the book is that a lot of the people who are affected by this are not just black people or brown people or poor people, people who are, have previously not been affected. People from all different backgrounds are affected by this, including farmers who, as a group tended to have been particularly supportive of this administration. And so I’m just sort of wondering like why it is that, that that message that this affects everybody doesn’t seem to be getting through. At least not at the moment.

COLEMAN FLOWERS: I don’t think – I think that it is not getting through because the people – and this is the problem that I’ve found in all the years I’ve been doing this work. Oftentimes the people that are making the policy haven’t been to these communities. They haven’t lived in these communities. They don’t talk to the people on the ground. They have no understanding of what’s going on. And they have a top down approach. And the top down approach does not work. It doesn’t work no matter who’s in the White House. And that’s part of the problem. And I think the only way we’re gonna get to real solutions is to make sure that, first of all, we listen to people that are on the ground. It shouldn’t be policy wants who are trying to finally get their day because they’ve been building, they’ve been trying to get this policy enacted for 20 years, and it is no longer appropriate. It doesn’t make sense. 

And likewise, when we talk about infrastructure, we can’t talk about the infrastructure in this country without talking about how the climate is changing. What do you wanna call it? Climate change or the weather is changing, or whatever. You can call it revelations. But it is changing. And when it’s changing, it is impacting the infrastructure. The failing infrastructure is impacting our productivity and is impacting the health of everybody, and we need to fix it.

MARTIN: What keeps you going?

COLEMAN FLOWERS: My faith. My faith keeps me going. I came from praying parents. I come from a praying family. I am inspired by all the people from the movements that I was involved in. Seeing people in the civil rights movement before they did any action, they prayed first. And I’m also hopeful because of the young people that I encounter. I spoke to a class recently, and the professor wrote me as recently as yesterday and said to me, two of the young people that were in his class changed their majors because of the engagement we, that we had together talking to each other and listening. And that’s why I’m very hopeful. I remain hopeful, and we always have to leave room for transformation. People can change.

MARTIN: Do you have a word for people who, who are discouraged right now? Because many of the issues like that you’ve been working on for years, people really do see backsliding. And I would, I would ask like, what would you say to them, to people who really feel like we don’t have a lot of time left and yet we’re going backwards. How do you, what would you say?

COLEMAN FLOWERS: Don’t bury your head in the sand. Become active. And the way I keep going is that I stay active. We have to find ways to stay engaged. Whether you write a book, whether you write an op-ed, whether you attend a rally, whether you just simply vote, whether you register people to vote. You know, I think we have to stay engaged. As I’ve looked at, I was a history teacher. As I look at American history, as I look at the history, even the French Revolution, it was sustained engagement that brought about the change. And we are gonna have to keep being engaged. One of the things I’ve learned in all my years on this planet is that we can’t rest on our laurels when we have success. We have to continue to be vigilant. We have to remain persistent, and we have to stay active.

MARTIN: Before we let you go. Your book is called, your latest book, is called “Holy Ground.” Why, why this book? Why now? And why do you call it that?

COLEMAN FLOWERS: Well, the book was something that I thought of two years ago because I thought we were gonna come to a time when we would need that. Where we would need to be reminded about who we are and how we got to where we are. And I felt that one way to do that was to talk about my own personal struggles, because they’re intertwined in each and every one of those essays. You know, I even revealed some things about myself that I had never shared before. That I was a vic, I had an atopic pregnancy, but it wasn’t atopic pregnancy that bothered me, it was the way I found out about it. You know, while I was halfway in a twilight sleep and the doctor came in and said, she can’t have the baby. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. But those were decisions that were taken away from me.

And I even revealed my mothers, the fact that my mother was sterilized. And there are so many other people that have come forward since that time to share their own stories. So I think that we are at a pivotal point where we are talking about women’s rights, we are talking about the right of Mother Earth. And I think, again, it is all connected. But I want to also leave people with a sense of hope, because with each and every essay, I do try to leave a sense of hope. Because I feel for me to be where I am at this point, coming from the dirt roads of Lowndes County to the cover of Time Magazine, my parents could not have imagined that. And that’s why my last chapter is “I am the answer to my ancestors’ dreams.”

MARTIN: Catherine Coleman Flowers, thank you so much for speaking with us.

COLEMAN FLOWERS: Thank you for having me.