July 13, 2026, HOUSTON, TX — Dr. Robert D. Bullard, known as the “father of environmental justice,” and a Rapid Response Team from the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University will launch a three-day, four-city Gulf Coast site visit and bus tour on Tuesday, July 14, with stops in New Orleans, LA, Gulfport, MS {EEECHO), Mobile, AL {C.H.E.S.S.} and Pensacola, FL {Unity in the Family}. “It is important we make these face-to-face visits at this point in time given the extreme pressures and converging threats faced by frontline communities in the Gulf South,” said Dr. Bullard, director of the center that bears his name. “The Bullard Center and HBCU-CBO Gulf Coast Equity Consortium reaffirm our unwavering commitment to assist and support the decade-long community-university partnerships formed to help achieve environmental, climate, energy, economic, water and health justice in the face of budget cuts, grant cancellations and weakened protections.”
The visits are designed to reengage and strengthen community-university partnerships first established a decade ago, when Dr. Bullard at TSU and Dr. Beverly Wright of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice co-founded the HBCU-CBO Gulf Coast Equity Consortium in 2016.
The multi-city initiative brings experienced academic researchers, technical experts and HBCU practitioners directly to frontline neighborhoods across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Grounded in the environmental justice principle that “people must speak for themselves,” the tour reinforces a local, grassroots network working to address structural disparities, social determinants of health and climate vulnerabilities.
The team is returning to communities with deep environmental justice roots, where vulnerable residents continue to face barriers to clean air and water, poor air quality, flooding and severe weather intensified by climate change. By combining science, research, data and facts with action and advocacy, the HBCU centers and Consortium partners remain committed to fighting for communities too often left out and left behind.
Center and HBCU-CBO Consortium projects examined environmental determinants including health equity, infrastructure gaps, pollution hot spots and disaster-response inequities, turning research findings into data tools communities can use to advocate for regional improvements. A book signing of Bullard and Wright’s The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How the Government Response to Disaster Endangers African American Communities (NYU Press) will be held at each community site.
Media Availability:
Dr. Bullard and local CBO leaders will be available for interviews at each tour stop. To RSVP for specific city media blocks, please contact David.Castillo@tsu.edu