1988
New York
New York
West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT) was founded in the late 1980s to advocate for environmental justice in low-income communities of color. The organization was founded by West Harlem activists Peggy Sheppard, Chuck Sutton, and Vernice Miller who were concerned about the North River Sewage Treatment Plant on the Harlem River. They successfully challenged the city into decommissioning the North River Sewage Treatment Plant (with a projected closure in 2036), built a community-based monitoring program for air quality, and educated the local community on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change to actualize change.