BIOGRAPHY

His book, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality (Westview Press, 2000), is a standard text in the environmental justice field. Some of his book titles include Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World (MIT Press, 2003), Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity (South End Press, 2004), The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution (Sierra Club Books, 2005), Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity (MIT Press, 2007), and The Black Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century: Race, Power, and the Politics of Place (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).  He is co-author of In the Wake of the Storm: Environment, Disaster and Race After Katrina(Russell Sage Foundation, 2006) and Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987-2007 (United Church of Christ Witness & Justice Ministries, 2007).

His latest books include Race, Place and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina (Westview Press, 2009), Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States (American Public Health Association Press, 2011), and The Wrong Complexion for Protection (New York University Press, 2012).  In 2013, he was honored with the Sierra Club John Muir Award, the first African American to win the award.   In 2014, the Sierra Club named its new Environmental Justice Award after Dr. Bullard.   In 2015, the Iowa State University Alumni Association named him its Alumni Merit Award recipient—an award also given to George Washington Carver (1894 ISU alum) in 1937.  In 2017, the Children Environmental Health Network presented him with the Child Health Advocate Award.

In 2018, the Global Climate Action Summit named Dr. Bullard one of 22 Climate Trailblazers.  And in 2019, Apolitical named him one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy, Washington State University honored him with the William Julius Wilson Award for the Advancement of Justice and Climate One named him the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication.

In 2019, Apolitical named him one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy, Washington State University honored him with the William Julius Wilson Award for the Advancement of Justice and Climate One named him the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication.

In 2020, WebMD gave him its Health Heroes Trailblazer Award and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) honored him with its Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award, the UN’s highest environmental honor, recognizing outstanding leaders from government, civil society and the private sector whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment.

In 2021, President Joe Biden named him to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC). And in 2022, University of California, Berkeley Ecology Law Quarterly gave him its Environmental Leadership Award, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award; Georgetown University and the University of Johannesburg awarded him honorary doctorates. In 2023, he was received the Berkeley Law Ecology Law Quarterly Environmental Leadership Award, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and named a Fellow in the California Academy of Sciences, awarded the American Geographical Society John E. Gould Medal and Harvard Law School honored him with its Environmental Law Society Horizon Award.  And in 2024, Clark University awarded him an honorary doctorate and TIME honored him with its Earth Award.