Bunyan Bryant Jr

Bunyan I. Bryant Jr. is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. In 1972, he became the first African American member of the School for Environment and Sustainability faculty at Michigan. He is considered a pioneer in the field of environmental justice.

In 1990, Bryant, along with his colleague Paul Mohai, organized the first Michigan Conference on Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards and with several other prominent attendees formed what came to be known as the Michigan Coalition. Their advocacy efforts helped lead to the creation of the EPA's Work Group on Environmental Equity. With Paul Mohai, Bryant co-published RACE AND THE INCIDENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS (1993), which was one of the first major scholarly books to explore the links between race, class, and environmental hazards. Bryant, along with Mohai, also established an environmental justice program at the University of Michigan which was the first in the country to offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in the specialty.

Bryant’s work has been recognized with numerous academic and other honors, including the Environmental Justice Champion Award at the Flint Environmental Justice Summit on March 10, 2017.