Co-Opting Justice: Transformation of a Multiracial Environmental Coalition in Southern Alabama

Between 1996 and 1998, plans to construct one of the nation's largest phenol plants near Mobile, Alabama, generated intense local opposition. Mobile Bay Watch, a movement originating among upper-middle-class whites, sought support from a nearby African American community to stop plant construction. In the process, it changed its focus from property values to the public health concerns of low-income residents. Yet, its strategies to encourage minority participation found mixed success. This paper examines how grassroots activists respond to regulatory policies that delegitimate their concerns and to new opportunities arising from federal environmental law, in the process transforming the strategies and claims of their movement.