At the NAACP, Racial Justice Means Climate Justice

by Maya Richard-Craven, Word in Black

Abre’ Conner, the director of the NAACP Center for Environmental and Climate Justice, refuses to let Black experiences be erased from the movement.

The NAACP has a long-standing history of fighting for climate justice. That’s because “environmental justice and civil rights are interconnected,” says Abre’ Conner, a Black woman and attorney who became the director of the NAACP Center for Environmental and Climate Justice in 2022.

“Civil rights are about understanding the interconnection of how Black folks or how other historically disadvantaged communities are disproportionately harmed as it relates to an issue that impacts us all,” Conner says.

She works alongside a small yet powerful team dedicated to acknowledging and combating environmental injustice. She informs and helps organize NAACP volunteers across the country, both on the state and local level, who are engaged on the ground in cities like Baltimore, Cleveland, and Jackson, Mississippi.

The water crisis in Jackson has been a major area of focus for the center. In August 2022, the water crisis in the 82% Black city of nearly 150,000 residents reached new heights, and there was a city-wide boil down order due to contaminated water.

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“We have been doing a lot of work in Jackson to try to help this predominantly Black city, and to rebuild its water infrastructure system. When they start to get resources to rebuild, you’ll have state legislators trying to pass a number of bills to take the money away that the federal government is now allotting to Jackson so they can rebuild,” Conner says.

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