Where is the soul of a movement? What is the history of environmentalism? What do race and class have to do with it? What can one organization do to overcome past failures and start winning the big fights? These are some of the questions that we asked ourselves when the members of Energy Action Coalition decided to read “Soul of Environmentalism” in the summer of 2007. In the spring, the Council of Energy Action had voted to enact a new Anti-Oppression plan for the coalition that would help to educate staff and organizations about vital issues of discrimination, privilege, and injustice. The plan was also intended to serve as a catalyst for challenging the dynamics that have built an environmental movement that often puts men in management positions more often than women and generally lacks representation from low-income communities and communities of color. The core elements of this new Anti-Oppression plan were a 2-day summer training on anti-oppression for all coalition staff and the institution of one reading per semester focused on a topic related to anti-oppression or social justice that would be combined with facilitated discussions with the staff of each organization and anyone else who’d like to participate.
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