In New York City, nearly 100 people gathered in Harlem to mark the 51st anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination and to demand justice for residents of Flint, Michigan, over the lead poisoning of the city’s drinking water. Peggy Shepard with the Harlem-based group WE ACT spoke about the connections between the water crisis in Flint, which is a predominantly African-American city, and high levels of pollution in other African-American communities such as Harlem.

Peggy Shepard: “We are here to stand in solidarity with Flint, because this is a gross example of environmental racism. We started here in Harlem because of the inordinate amount of pollution in this community that’s been making people sick. And we work within the national environmental justice movement to right these wrongs, because millions of people in this country, predominantly people of color, do not have clean water, clean air and safe schools.”