Carolyn Bell is the Executive Director of Community Health Resources, Inc., (CHRI) a community based organization in Memphis, Tennessee, and the National Program Coordinator for the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Community Action and Response Against Toxics (CARAT) Team, a national network of labor-community environmental justice alliances.  She is a health planner and developer of health resources and has over thirty-five years of experience in both occupational/environmental health and primary health care services.  Bell started her career at Tufts Delta Health Center, the first community health center in the nation, where she worked from 1970 to 1972 as a community health development administrator and planner.  She later returned to primary health care as the Vice President for Community Services at Memphis Health Center from 1983 to 1988 where she was responsible for generating millions of dollars in funding, largely from grants, for a gamut of health disparities and other health-related concerns.  As the Director of Community Health Resources, she piloted the Institute for African American Youth, a behavior modification and prevention program funded by the US Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.  As the Director of CHRI, she was also the sub-contractor to provide case management services for BabyLove, a substance abuse treatment program for pregnant and lactating women.

Bell spent a number of years (1974-1979) as a practicing industrial hygienist (IH) for the International Rubber Workers Union and was the first female and the second IH hired by organized labor.  She also worked as an IH for the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center (1979-1981).  Her book entitled, The Environment In Small Doses A Lay Person's Guide To Understanding Toxic Substances published in 1987, was chosen as a member of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers Occupational Health Bookset, a list of books recommended by OCAW to be part of a library collection for all local union health and safety committees.  Bell was the project manager for the Jesus People Against Pollution grass roots organization that resulted in a position paper, which described major discrepancies in the cleanup of the Reichhold Chemical Company waste site in Columbia, MS.  She was also a consultant for the Community Action Program in Anniston, Alabama that resulted in a $750M settlement against Monsanto Chemical Company for residents exposed to PCBS.  For her work as a member of the EPA Common Sense Initiative Council, (1998-1999) Ms. Bell was a recent recipient of Vice President Al Gore’s Hammer Award for Reinventing America.  She also was a Commissioner for the US Congressional Black Caucus Commission on Environmental Justice (1999 -2001).

Presently, as the National Program Coordinator for the CBTU CARAT Team, Bell provides leadership and helps identify resources for over twenty environmentally distressed urban and rural minority communities. She has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from Tougaloo College (1969), a Master of Science Degree in Biology from Purdue University (1970 and a Master of Science Degree in Environmental Health Sciences from the Harvard University School of Public Health 1973.  More recently during her career, as a primary health care consultant, she has raised millions of dollars in grants for community health centers.

Bell and her husband Clifford Black are the proprietors of WindFlower/Intu Education, an education and behavior modification products development company aimed at the promotion of positive social behavior and academic excellence among children and youth.  Bell is also the founder of CommPare, a popular culture media-based behavior modification and prevention program.  She also has been the Executive Producer of video productions on Environmental Justice and Substance Abuse among Pregnant Women.