The struggles that followed Hurricane Katrina's crushing blow to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still define the lives of those impacted and still weigh heavily on the minds of many Americans during this election year.

A leading national authority on post-Katrina environmental justice, Robert H. Bullard, the Edmund Asa Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and director of the Environmental Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, will discuss “Race, Place and Environmental Justice after Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast” at a lecture on Oct. 17, 4 p.m. in 223 Engel Hall.

Bullard’s book by the same name, with co-author Beverly White, will be available for purchase after the lecture.

Bullard is usually cited as the founder and leading voice of environmental-justice scholarship and advocacy, and many sources refer to him as the "father of environmental justice." In recent recognition for his scholarship and advocacy, he was featured in the July 2007 CNN People You Should Know series, and was awarded the Co-op America 2008 Building Economic Alternatives award, which is given to those who exemplify the socially responsible activities closest to the heart of Co-op America’s goals of advancing social justice and environmental sustainability. Newsweek profiled him one of thirteen environmental leaders of the century, along with John Muir, Rachel Carson, and Lois Gibbs.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the School of Public and International Affairs, in Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies; the Institute for Policy and Governance; the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention; Science and Technology Studies; the College of Natural Resources; the Department of Forestry; the Department of Political Science; Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series; and the World Institute for Disaster Risk Management at Virginia Tech.

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