WE ACT for Environmental Justice: Clearing the Air in Harlem

WE ACT for Environmental Justice was launched in 1988 in West Harlem, New York City, by residents Peggy Shepard, Vernice Miller-Travis and Chuck Sutton to fight the concentration of polluting infrastructure, bus depots, sewage plants and highways, in Northern Manhattan. Its Community Air Monitoring Project installed a network of low-cost sensors and, in April 2025, 18 high-quality air monitors in Northern Manhattan schools to fill gaps left by the city's sparse official monitoring network. WE ACT's advocacy has driven policy wins including the city's clean-diesel bus conversion and a ban on gas hookups in new buildings, and a pilot converting NYCHA apartments to induction stoves cut indoor nitrogen dioxide concentrations by 35 percent. The organization continues to train residents as 'community scientists' who collect and interpret their own neighborhood's pollution data.