José F. Morales The Toxic Avengers Collection

José F. Morales was an alternative high school teacher and environmental activist who acted as the adult advisor to The Toxic Avengers, a student group formed at the El Puente Community Center in 1987. The group concerned itself with issues of pollution and environmental safety in the immediate community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The Toxic Avengers chose their name based on The Toxic Avenger, a movie about a teenager who becomes a superhero after falling into a vat of radioactive chemicals. Although membership grew and shifted over time, the original Toxic Avengers consisted of approximately fifteen Puerto Rican/Latino students and their faculty advisors.

The Toxic Avengers were formed in order to encourage young people to participate in the community at large, and the group gained traction in the public eye as a result of their independent investigation into the Radiac Corporation. When the Radiac Corporation, a radioactive waste dumping company, was found to be storing and dumping toxic chemicals near a local school, The Toxic Avengers took action. They snapped photographs of the site, created detailed logs of company activity, collected signatures for petitions, and sent samples of chemical waste off to a New Jersey lab for testing. Their efforts led to the cleaning up of the lot on which Radiac had previously been holding its operations. The Radiac investigation was the most notable achievement of The Toxic Avengers, and it attracted national attention. The group was featured in a 1990 article for Scholastic Scope, which detailed their development, philosophies, and journey. Additionally, The Toxic Avengers were featured in a 1991 issue of Kid Heroes of the Environment.

The Toxic Avengers were recognized for the educational workshops that they organized, the recycling programs that they initiated, the rallies that they staged, and the extensive professional connections that they formed with environmental organizations, both local and national. In 1992, El Puente Community Center banned The Toxic Avengers from meeting onsite due to administrative restructuring, and the group ultimately dissolved. In the end, The Toxic Avengers made their mark on history as a dynamic grassroots success, addressing systemic inequalities at the intersection of race, health, and the environment within the community of Williamsburg.

Sources: Scholastic Scope, 1990