Rhonda Anderson: 2019 Milliken Award winner

Rhonda Anderson, of Detroit, recognized that social justice was linked to environmental issues not long after she started organizing 41 years ago. Advocating for overburdened, ignored communities has been her mission ever since.

A Sierra Club organizer for nearly 20 years, Anderson has focused her efforts on residents in Southwest Detroit, a region blanketed by industrial pollution with correspondingly high incidences of health conditions, like cancer and heart disease. Every day she has stood with and for residents, challenging powerful interests to change harmful practices.

These positive changes have ranged from decisions to close coal-fired power plants to the purchase of hundreds of homes fouled by oil refinery emissions to the passage of a ban on fugitive dust escaping from piles of uncovered pet coke and other materials.

Anderson was one of the leaders who in 2008 encouraged then-Governor Jennifer Granholm to sign an Environmental Justice Executive Order. She was a major contributor to a Sierra Club report that detailed how the Detroit area’s low-income and minority populations face greater health and environmental challenges because of their proximity to industrial pollution.

For her work, Anderson received the 2019 Helen & Milliken Distinguished Service Award from the Michigan Environmental Council.