Hazel M. Johnson

Hazel M. Johnson (née Washington; January 25, 1935 – January 12, 2011) was an American environmental activist on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. After she spoke at the first National People of Color Environmental Leadership, she was considered to be the mother of environmental justice.

Early education and personal life Johnson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 25, 1935, to Mary (née Dunmore) and Clarence Washington. She cared about her family and had a personal connection to her family's health. Johnson was the older sibling of her family and began noticing environmental health concerns. Before she and all her siblings turned one, her three younger siblings had died. Orphaned when she was 12 years old, she was sent to live with an aunt in Los Angeles. She attended Jefferson High School for two years, then returned to New Orleans to live with her grandmother. The Johnsons moved to Altgeld Gardens Homes, a South Side, Chicago housing project managed by the Chicago Housing Authority, in 1962. For over fifty years, George Pullman's railroad company had put waste into the landfills and impacted more than 10,000 residents living in the Altgeld Gardens. Following the death of her husband in 1969 from lung cancer and the prevalence of skin and respiratory issues among her seven children, Johnson began investigating the impacts of the neighborhood's environmental conditions on its residents. Johnson discovered that Altgeld Gardens sat in the center of a 14-square-mile ring of pollution from Chicago's Southeast Side to Northwest Indiana, leading her to dub the neighborhood "The Toxic Doughnut". In addition to being exposed to hazardous fumes from surrounding factories and asbestos used during construction of the buildings, the community was supplied with contaminated drinking water and was found to have the highest cancer rate in the city. Incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 1982, the group focused "on fighting environmental racism as it affected the residents of Altgeld Gardens public housing project." Johnson found that "68 percent of the 800 residents who left the Altgeld Gardens could have their health improve." Johnson met with different authorities within the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Disease Control to ensure that the environmental injustices were addressed.

In 1985, Johnson led environmental bus tours for DePaul students to learn about the environmental injustices occurring within the Altgeld Gardens.

The People for Community Recovery, which continues to operate today under the leadership of Johnson's daughter Cheryl, went on to conduct multiple surveys documenting the South Side's "abnormally high rates of respiratory, pulmonary, and skin-related disease in addition to high infant death rates and cancer." In 2021, Cheryl helped pass the law of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that helped people of color to have new job opportunities in Chicago.

Johnson was given the 1992 President's Environment and Conservation Challenge award in recognition of her environmental justice work. In 2004, sociologist David Naguib Pellow credited Johnson and the People for Community Recovery with putting "the South Side of Chicago on the radar screen for activists and policy makers around the United States who are concerned about environmental racism." The naming of the stretch was officially celebrated during a ribbon cutting ceremony on September 15, 2016.

Death Despite her knowledge of the toxic pollutants lurking in her community, Johnson continued to live in Altgeld Gardens her entire life. She died on January 12, 2011, due to complications related to congestive heart failure. In 2004, sociologist David Naguib Pellow credited Johnson and the People for Community Recovery with putting "the South Side of Chicago on the radar screen for activists and policy makers around the United States who are concerned about environmental racism." Her contributions helped transform the environmental movement into a broader struggle for racial and economic equity, and her story remains a foundational part of environmental justice history in the United States.