Our founding:

EJAM evolved from a 2003 Minneapolis Urban League (MUL) meeting focusing on health disparities in communities of color. This meeting served as the foundation for a coalition of community members and organizations coming together to focus on environmental justice and health disparities. Issues that came up at the meeting were coal plant pollution, need for neighborhood legal advocacy assistance, lead poisoning, and health disparities.

Since then, the MUL has hosted monthly EJAM meetings to define mission, goals, and scope of the newly formed coalition, which consists of: North Minneapolis community members, MUL, NAACP, Sierra Club North Star Chapter, Metropolitan Area African American Chamber of Commerce, Institute for Agricultural & Trade Policy, Women’s Cancer Resource Center, Council on Black Minnesotans, Indigenous Women’s Network, African American Tobacco Network, Synergy Publishing, Alliance for Metropolitan Stability, and members of area churches, public schools and the medical community. In Fall 2004 EJAM established its first 15-person Board of Directors.