Detroit mothers reveal environmental abuses through photography

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With the snaps of their cameras, Detroit Head Start mothers are speaking out against the environmental injustice that harms their children.

Using a method known as Photo Voice, mothers are documenting the abuses through photography. The photos captured many cases of illegal dumping in their neighborhoods by trucks with covered license plates. Some photos show air pollution from factories, as well as abandoned, unsafe buildings.

This Photo Voice project was begun five years ago by faculty in the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) and School of Social Work (SSW) to draw attention to lead contamination in Detroit. The project focus later expanded to include environmental injustice, and U-M faculty wanted to help Head Start mothers make improvements in their neighborhoods.

Maizah McCann, the mother of a 4-year-old boy, is one of the women involved in this Head Start effort because she believes her son deserves to live in better conditions.

"What makes people think they can dump here? When a kid grows up and that's what they see, they think: 'This is all I'm worth.' I'm not going to accept this," she says.

The group included 15 mothers who documented environmental racism, which excludes minorities from environmental decisions—such as exposure to toxic and hazardous waste—affecting their communities, says Bunyan Bryant, director of the Environmental Justice Initiative at SNRE.

Communities of color disproportionately suffer from environmental hazards and toxins—and Detroit is no exception. With a minority population of approximately 87 percent, Detroit houses more than 40,000 toxic facilities, according to the Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice.

These factors have overwhelming effects on children who are more susceptible to these hazards due to their smaller size and developmental processes. Detroit children are twice as likely to have asthma as other metropolitan areas throughout the country. This environmental injustice can lead to an increased occurrence of learning disabilities, increased aggression and cancer in minority children.

The mothers worked with Bryant and Michael Spencer, an associate professor in SSW.

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