We Are Environmental Justice in Action
The ReGenesis Institute is a global hub for ‘community-first’ learning and practices that can transform environmental, social, and economic injustices into healthy communities that are climate resilient through infrastructure development and lead to shared economic prosperity.
Read Our Report
This report contains the story of the ReGenesis organization and its partners as they revitalized distressed frontline communities in Spartanburg, SC. After years of disenfranchisement and disinvestment since the 1970s, the communities located in the southside of Spartanburg, SC, in particular the Arkwright and Forest Park communities, were struggling to survive. In addition to the social and economic challenges that the communities faced, the residents of these communities were also suffering from environmental and health issues brought about by industrial sources. These included a municipal landfill, an abandoned fertilizer plant, an active chemical manufacturing plant, and other contaminated sites; inadequate healthcare; poor housing; and climate resiliency issues.
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Our Story
In 1998, Harold Mitchell Jr. founded the grass-roots Environmental Justice (EJ) organization, ReGenesis. While suffering his own personal undiagnosed health challenges, Harold discovered that the cumulative impact of abandoned industrial sites and landfills (later designated by EPA as Superfund/Brownfield sites) had caused many of the deaths and chronic illnesses plaguing his family, and the larger Arkwright/Forest Park Community of South Carolina.
ReGenesis received a $20,000 EPA small grant and began conducting a community-led planning process to chart the necessary infrastructure projects needed to repair the history of harm and rebuild the Arkwright and Forest Park communities. Since that inception, ReGenesis has executed a plan of cleanup, redevelopment and revitalization that now serves as a model for meaningful environmental justice. To date, almost $300 million in federal, state, local, private sector, and philanthropic investments have been leveraged to benefit the community. Harold’s story represents hundreds of other communities in America that have suffered, and are currently suffering, from crippling environmental injustices.
Now, the ReGenesis Institute is launching its second phase to complete the vision the community outlined while helping expand the ReGenesis Model to lead the Just Transition. In addition, the ReGenesis Institute has launched the first-of-its-kind accelerator for communities like Spartanburg to lead their own social economic and climate resiliency transformation.
“I first began a partnership with Harold Mitchell in 2009 when he joined the Clinton Global Initiative. His leadership of the ReGenesis organization allowed Harold to be a trusted advisor on environmental justice, community revitalization, and other major issues. As I have visited the ReGenesis project in Spartanburg, SC, over the years, I learned much from Harold about why he was so successful. My hope is that we will be able to emulate his outstanding record of achievement in many other communities”
— President William J. Clinton (1993-2001)
Our Goal Is To Help Frontline Communities Achieve Justice By:
Sharing the ReGenesis Model domestically and internationally
Hosting trainings and site visits to teach the ReGenesis Model
Providing thought leadership in developing strategies and tools to achieve environmental justice, climate resiliency, community-led sustainable infrastructure development, and solutions to other intersectional issues
Consulting with communities and assisting them during their equitable development journeys