Earth Week: Explore Environmental and Economic Injustice in Philadelphia
Chester County author Will Caverly will be on campus on Thursday, April 23, to discuss
his book Tinicum & Eastwick: Environmental Justice and Racial Injustice in Southwest Philadelphia (Brookline Books). His talk and Q&A is on Thursday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. in the
Business and Public Management Center Room 116.
In the book, Caverly confronts the intersection of eminent domain and environment, told through the struggles everyday residents endured to pursue justice. When plans to overhaul Southwest Philadelphia in the 1950s scheduled both the integrated neighborhood of Eastwick and the ecologically valuable Tinicum marshes to be razed, two grassroots movements took up the cause, battling eminent domain in the name of environmental conservation and economic injustice.
The decades-long grassroots movement preserved the Eastwick neighborhood and led to the creation of the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, a freshwater tidal marsh and America’s first urban wildlife refuge.
Caverly also wrote Here, The Bees Sting, a beekeeping thriller, and has been published in Commonweal Magazine, Bee Culture, and The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. He is an active member of the PA Outdoor Writers Association.
Caverly’s presentation is cosponsored by the WCU Office of Sustainability and the University’s Department of Geography and Planning with the West Chester Green Team.
More Earth Week Events
Monday, April 20
11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sykes Student Union Ballrooms
Wednesday, April 22
Sustainability Research and Practice Seminar
12 p.m. Margaret Hudgins and Molly Hanford, West Chester Green Team: “Sustainability and the West Chester Porch Fest.” Sykes Student Union Room 255 A/B and via Zoom (https://wcupa.zoom.us/j/95413261652, meeting ID: 954 1326 1652, passcode: 880242).
Wednesday, April 22
12 p.m. 25 University Avenue Lawn
Thursday, April 23
Amazon in Africa: Corporate Development and Community Conflict
2:30 p.m. Anderson Hall Room 203
Discussion by Amy Stambach, anthropology professor University of Wisconsin-Madison and author, Corporate Alibi: The Cultural Politics of U.S. Investments in Africa. More information: email antsoc@wcupa.edu.
Friday, April 24
Arbor Day Tree Planting
1 p.m. Quad near Anderson Hall outdoor classroom.
Saturday, April 25
West Chester Green Team Earth Day Events