Restoring the Connection to the Natural World

Since its emergence in the second half of the nineteenth century American environmentalism had predominantly been a white, middle-class pursuit, preoccupied with notions of wilderness and wildlife preservation. Only fairly recently, with the advent of the environmental justice movement in the 1980s, has American environmentalism broadened its definition of environment to include the concerns relevant to a community's way of living. Especially the concerns of poor urban communities of color, which have been exposed to environmental hazards disproportionately, have entered the political agenda.