Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained
A Message from the Interim Editor-in-Chief, Phil W. Petrie...

     Evoking poet John Milton in this issue of The Crisis could be considered by some of you to be pretentious, a little over the top. Milton's paradise deals with Eden's Garden. The Crisis, however, is concerned with Earth's changing environment, and those persons who bear the burden of the change. Except for one, the feature stories in this issue are devoted to environmental justice - what it is and why we should be concerned.

     Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, and the author of 14 books on the subject, informs us about toxic racism. Dr. Bailus Walker Jr., professor of environmental and occupational medicine at Howard University College of Medicine, tells us of health disparities between Blacks and Whites caused by environmental disparities.

     Veronica Eady, a senior staff attorney at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, gives us a graphic story of why the laws created to protect the environment work only sometimes; and Peggy Shepard, co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, describes how a community can organize to empower itself.

     The one feature that is not on environmental justice is an insightful story on the city of Detroit after the riots of 1967. This month (July) is the 40th anniversary of that disturbance. Much has changed in those 40 years, especially a downturn in the auto industry. What hasn't changed is the indomitable spirit of Detroit's residents, who are determined to keep the Motor City moving - paradise regained.

     Just as this month marks for Detroit a benchmark for the riots of 1967, Mach 6 of this year is a benchmark for the African nation of Ghana, indeed for all of Africa. On that date, Ghana shed the colonial yoke imposed on it by Great Britain and became the first African colonial state to claim its independence and join the world of nation-states.

     Several of my friends named their newborn children "Kwame" after Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah; others went to Ghana, shining representatives of either the Peace Corps or Pan Africanism. It was a heady time. The Rev. Amos Brown, a San Francisco pastor, questions in this issue our enthusiasm and contribution to "Mother Africa". Such sober questions were brought to fore when he attended Ghana's 50 anniversary celebration.

     One of the names mentioned in Brown's article (in Issues & Views) was Claude Barnett of the Associated Negro Press. It was Barnett who hired Alice Allison Dunnigan, the subject of the lead article in Crisis Forum. A Kentucky native, Dunnigan was a pioneer journalist who was responsible for getting Black reporter accredited to cover the White House and the two divisions of Congress. Hers is a fascinating story of perseverance and succeeding against the odds.

     This special issue devoted to environmental justice would not have evolved as it did without the help of Ms. Carol Tucker, a longtime activist in the Environmental Movement who lives in Georgia. I owe her much and thank her for all that she did for this issue.

     As I have said in each of the three issues that I have edited, thanks to all of those with whom I've worked. It has been a pleasure. This includes my friend Judy Dothard Simmons, who edited stories in the March/April and May/June issues of The Crisis. Simmons died last May; for her, paradise regained.

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* Letters may be edited for length or clarity.