Jerome Ringo
Jerome C. Ringo (born March 2, 1955 ), an American lawyer specializing in environmental justice, renewable energy, and quality work. He is the current Chair of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and Research Fellow and McCluskey Fellow in Environmental and Conservation at Yale University .
When he took over the leadership of the NWF in 2005, he became the first African American in US history to head a major conservation organization. Ringo is also president of the Apollo Alliance , an association of unionized workers, environmentalists , business and civil rights leaders dedicated to freeing the US from dependence on foreign oil.
Childhood and youth
Jerome Ringo was born the third of six children to parents, Earl Ringo, a retired postal worker, and Nellie Ringo, a nurse. Ringo grew up in Bayous in southern Louisiana when the American civil rights movement was at its height. During this time, Earl helped establish multiracial public schools in Louisiana.
His father often played recordings of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speeches . When Jerome was thirteen, he and his brothers were ready to be the first black students enrolled in previously segregated schools in Lake Charles , Louisiana. In the middle of the night her father woke the boys and told them to crawl to the front window. As the boys looked out, they saw a group of Ku Klux Klan men burn a cross in their front yard.
He was the first African American to work as a ranger at the Philmont Scout Ranch , the world's largest scout camp in Cimarron , New Mexico .
Ringo was in college and was planning a degree in education from both Louisiana Technical University and McNeese State University . Before earning a title, however, he decided, attracted by a high salary, to take a job in the petrochemical industry in 1975.
Career
After college, Ringo worked in the petrochemical industry for 22 years , over half that time as a union leader. Many of his relatives live right next to the fence of this industry, so he saw firsthand the effects of pollution on the oil refineries . He noted that the refinery workers wore masks and protective clothing, but that the neighbors opposite the fence, who were mostly poor and black, did not receive such protection and suffered disproportionately from cancer and respiratory diseases. In fact, Ringo chose to educate the people in the communities affected by petrochemical pollution and teach them how to effectively stop chemicals being released into their neighborhood, which led to the beginning of his environmental activism. Ringo began his environmental activism in 1991 by becoming a member of the Calcasieu League for Environmental Action Now (CLEAN), a subsidiary of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation . He was the first black man among the 20,000 members of this state-wide group to ever join.
Instead of trying to shut down the refineries and chemical plants, he advocated lobbying state lawmakers on environmental laws and encouraging citizens to come to public hearings where they, as a community, voice their fears and concerns Truth could give power.
Ringo was transferred to Malaysia and was offered early retirement on one of his trips back to the United States. After accepting this offer, he dedicated his life to full-time work for the people who lived beyond the refinery fences. In 1998 he was the only African American who was a delegate to the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in Kyoto , Japan , where he gave a speech. He also spoke at the Central American Conference on Sustainable Development in Belize City . He held speeches at many former Black colleges and other universities, including the School of Natural Resources and Environment of the University of Michigan and in the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference of the University of Oregon .
Apollo Alliance
As president of the Apollo Alliance , Ringo works to convince the public and lobby in Washington, DC of the need to invest in alternative clean energy sources, energy efficient technologies and jobs by forming various coalitions. The Apollo Alliance seeks to make American industry more competitive, rebuild cities, create good jobs, and ensure good management of the economic and natural environment. Ringo said: "We are an organization that looks like the face of America."
The name of the alliance was chosen as a tribute to John F. Kennedy's Apollo program , which successfully brought humans to the moon in 1969. The Apollo Alliance was supported by the leaders of the AFL-CIO , the Sierra Club , Greenpeace USA , the National Wildlife Federation, the Union of Concerned Scientists , the NAACP and other activist groups.
National Wildlife Federation
In 1996 Ringo was elected to the board of directors of the National Wildlife Federation , a seventy-year-old environmental protection organization that has 4.5 million members and over 700 employees. Since he became chairman of the board in 2005, Ringo has tried to expand the partnerships of the NWF with other organizations, especially with those organizations that fight environmental threats in poor and minority settlements. He pushed programs that reached urban and minority communities, including schoolyard biotope programs like Earth Tomorrow , which focuses on minority children in elementary, middle school, and high schools.
"The single most important issue for me as an environmentalist is climate change," Ringo told Mother Jones in 2005 . ("The single greatest issue for me as an environmentalist is climate change.").
Ringo has the vision of a new movement in environmental protection , where everyone is involved in joint planning for the future. He believes that real success, energy security, public health care, environmental protection and social justice will be achieved when environmentalists are united and empowered to meet as equal partners with economic interest groups.
Web links
- The Pioneer: An Interview With Jerome Ringo by Erik Kancler in Mother Jones , April 25, 2005
- Jerome Ringo's blog at the Huffington Post
- Jerome Ringo Speech (June 6, 2008) in New Orleans , speech at the National Black Mayors Conference on YouTube (9:55 min)
Footnotes
- ↑ National Wildlife Federation : Jerome Ringo Elected NWF Chair ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . April 4, 2005
- ↑ Apollo Alliance: Staff ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ringo, Jerome |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ringo, Jerome C. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American environmentalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 2, 1955 |