Vernice Miller-Travis is a groundbreaking leader of the environmental justice movement. As a research assistant to Charles Lee, research director at the UCC Commission for Racial Justice, she helped write and publish the seminal 1987 report, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States. As a program leader at NRDC, a program officer at the Ford Foundation, and then as the co-founder of We ACT for Environmental Justice in her hometown of Harlem, NY, she continues to work to advance environmental justice for the many communities who continue to suffer under the burden of pollution exposure, public health disparities, and rising mortality rates.She currently serves as vice-chair of the Maryland Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities.