00:00:20.854 --> 00:00:25.942
FEMALE_1: [BACKGROUND] Let me know if you like that. It's kinda bright

00:00:25.942 --> 00:00:27.819
FEMALE_2: I like this one, that's nice.

00:00:27.819 --> 00:00:28.278
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: [APPLAUSE]

00:00:28.278 --> 00:00:49.632
Forty years ago,

00:00:49.632 --> 00:00:52.635
of the 100 counties in North Carolina,

00:00:52.635 --> 00:00:55.555
Warren County was the most predominantly Black.

00:00:55.555 --> 00:01:00.602
Warren County was a rural agricultural county.

00:01:00.602 --> 00:01:03.146
Those of you who are native of North Carolina

00:01:03.146 --> 00:01:05.023
you know that Warren County was also the place

00:01:05.023 --> 00:01:09.986
where Floyd McKissick wanted to establish Soul City.

00:01:10.487 --> 00:01:15.325
I was so inspired by Floyd McKissick's building of Soul City.

00:01:15.325 --> 00:01:20.163
I started a restaurant and a disco in Oxford called the Seoul Kitchen.

00:01:20.663 --> 00:01:27.212
The truth of the matter is, I'm certain that the

00:01:27.212 --> 00:01:29.214
state officials, including the governor,

00:01:29.214 --> 00:01:39.891
knew that it wasn't appropriate to put tons of toxins in a poor rural,

00:01:39.891 --> 00:01:47.148
predominantly African American community that got most of its water from wells.

00:01:47.148 --> 00:01:53.530
It's the last place you want to dig a hole and dump tons of toxins,

00:01:53.530 --> 00:01:55.865
but that's what happened.

00:01:55.865 --> 00:02:01.913
They announced it, and they started to bring these trucks in September of 1982.

00:02:01.913 --> 00:02:05.875
While I'm giving a lot of credit for what happened,

00:02:05.875 --> 00:02:11.756
I must give the credit first to the women, to the children,

00:02:11.756 --> 00:02:19.180
one of whom was only 4-year-old child get arrested by the state of

00:02:19.180 --> 00:02:22.517
North Carolina for laying down in the road to

00:02:22.517 --> 00:02:26.187
block the trucks from dumping PCB in Warren County.

00:02:26.187 --> 00:02:26.312
[MUSIC].

00:02:26.312 --> 00:03:21.826
MALE_1: I'm glad we put the tables and chairs out yesterday.

00:03:21.826 --> 00:03:25.079
They get in a mess this morning.

00:03:30.376 --> 00:04:04.369
[BACKGROUND] Thank you. [BACKGROUND]

00:04:04.619 --> 00:04:09.123
Vincent Jones. County manager. You don't want a picture?

00:04:09.123 --> 00:04:10.250
We'll photoshop you.

00:04:10.250 --> 00:04:32.230
[BACKGROUND]

00:04:32.230 --> 00:04:51.582
PROTESTERS: [SINGING] Hallelujah.

00:04:51.582 --> 00:04:54.961
We don't want no PCB.

00:04:54.961 --> 00:05:00.883
Give it to Hunt. Don't give it to me. / Give it to Hunt, don't give it to me.

00:05:00.883 --> 00:05:05.888
We don't want no PCB. / We don't want no PCB.

00:05:05.888 --> 00:05:10.893
Give it to Hunt. Don't give it to me. / Give it to Hunt, don't give it to me.

00:05:10.893 --> 00:05:11.894
Fire it up! / Fire it up!

00:05:11.894 --> 00:05:12.895
Fire it up! / Fire it up!

00:05:12.895 --> 00:05:15.898
Fire it up! / Fire it up!

00:05:15.898 --> 00:05:20.236
MALE_2: We don't take it no more.

00:05:20.236 --> 00:05:28.786
UNKNOWN_1: [MUSIC].

00:05:28.786 --> 00:05:33.249
Wayne Moseley: Buck Ward had a transformer company here in Raleigh.

00:05:33.249 --> 00:05:38.546
The insulation that was used in these transformers,

00:05:38.546 --> 00:05:46.512
that oil contained a chemical called PCB or polychlorinated biphenyls.

00:05:47.180 --> 00:05:52.018
Buck Ward had some of his employees dispose of

00:05:52.018 --> 00:05:56.731
this oil by putting it in his tankers and late hours of the night,

00:05:56.731 --> 00:06:02.028
drive along with the valve open and leaking out a little bit at a time.

00:06:07.950 --> 00:06:10.870
Deborah Ferruccio: We moved here in '77,

00:06:10.870 --> 00:06:16.667
and so it was just a little more than a year later in 1978,

00:06:16.667 --> 00:06:20.296
that polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs,

00:06:20.296 --> 00:06:26.719
were dumped along the roadsides in 14 counties and also at the Fort Bragg Army base.

00:06:27.637 --> 00:06:31.182
All 14 counties, people kept calling in, saying,

00:06:31.182 --> 00:06:33.267
"What is this black, gooey,

00:06:33.267 --> 00:06:36.562
stinky, nasty stuff along our roadsides?"

00:06:36.562 --> 00:06:41.901
It took a while for the state to even begin to get involved with what to do.

00:06:41.901 --> 00:06:44.028
MALE_3: Three men dumped thousands of gallons of

00:06:44.028 --> 00:06:47.365
PCB oil along these rural North Carolina roadways.

00:06:47.365 --> 00:06:48.908
Two men were sentenced to prison,

00:06:48.908 --> 00:06:52.328
but more than 210 miles of roadways had been contaminated.

00:06:52.328 --> 00:06:55.581
Lawsuits preventing the immediate cleanup.

00:06:57.834 --> 00:07:02.422
S. Charmaine McKissick-Melton: This guy did what? He wanted to save money,

00:07:02.422 --> 00:07:06.551
and he just decided to open the spigot and pour

00:07:06.551 --> 00:07:12.265
along the side of the road in 14 counties for 200 and some miles.

00:07:12.265 --> 00:07:15.351
I think, initially, we're all just literally

00:07:15.351 --> 00:07:18.354
stunned that someone would actually do something like this.

00:07:18.354 --> 00:07:23.025
And then it became, okay, this is reality,

00:07:23.025 --> 00:07:25.153
and this stuff is toxic.

00:07:25.153 --> 00:07:29.699
It's just not like he poured out a milkshake or something on the side of the road.

00:07:29.699 --> 00:07:34.454
We said, we got to dig up all this stuff 200 and some miles.

00:07:34.454 --> 00:07:37.999
Where are we going to put it? We got to put it in the landfill.

00:07:41.878 --> 00:07:47.091
Dollie Burwell: The state of North Carolina needed to have a toxic waste facility.

00:07:47.091 --> 00:07:51.846
Then we learned that the state had actually purchased

00:07:51.846 --> 00:07:58.394
150 acres of land and had an option on another 200 acres of land.

00:07:58.394 --> 00:08:04.192
Then we start thinking long term that this is not just about the PCB.

00:08:04.192 --> 00:08:07.945
It's about Warren County probably becoming

00:08:07.945 --> 00:08:13.993
a permanent toxic waste facility for maybe not just North Carolina,

00:08:13.993 --> 00:08:16.913
but the whole Southeast region.

00:08:17.914 --> 00:08:22.126
Wayne Moseley: Jim Hunt and his administration chose

00:08:22.126 --> 00:08:28.216
Warren County because we were a poor county and we were a minority county.

00:08:28.216 --> 00:08:31.385
I felt that Warren County was chosen because

00:08:31.385 --> 00:08:34.639
it was perceived to be the path of least resistance.

00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:37.767
Patrick Barnes: That was low hanging fruit for them.

00:08:37.767 --> 00:08:45.274
Poor black rural community for a landfill, that's very expedient.

00:08:45.274 --> 00:08:48.277
At the time, that was quite the practice,

00:08:48.277 --> 00:08:49.529
quite the regular practice.

00:08:49.529 --> 00:08:52.114
It's quickest and easiest.

00:08:52.114 --> 00:08:55.576
My guess is it'd be far easier to do that

00:08:55.576 --> 00:09:00.206
than to truck across state lines or anything like that.

00:09:00.206 --> 00:09:04.210
I'm sure that is what drove their decision.

00:09:04.210 --> 00:09:06.796
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: What was the motive

00:09:06.837 --> 00:09:11.801
of the state choosing the most predominantly Black county,

00:09:11.801 --> 00:09:18.641
a rural poor agriculture community that had a shallow aquifer, very important.

00:09:18.641 --> 00:09:22.812
Most of the people in that area got their water from well water.

00:09:22.812 --> 00:09:31.153
Any seepage, any deposit into groundwater is going to get in people's well water,

00:09:31.153 --> 00:09:33.072
not just for a few yards,

00:09:33.072 --> 00:09:34.740
but for miles away.

00:09:34.740 --> 00:09:36.492
Ken Ferruccio: How do you know?

00:09:36.492 --> 00:09:40.329
If a given chemical like PCBs.

00:09:40.329 --> 00:09:44.584
How do you know where the safe level is?

00:09:44.584 --> 00:09:47.169
When you start looking into the research,

00:09:47.169 --> 00:09:50.423
you find some very interesting things going on.

00:09:50.423 --> 00:09:55.303
One, there's a great deal of inconsistency and disagreement

00:09:55.303 --> 00:09:57.555
among federal institutions and

00:09:57.555 --> 00:10:00.600
risk assessment communities on what constitutes a safe level.

00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.352
Rev. William Kearney: Our governor, our government that's supposed to protect

00:10:03.352 --> 00:10:06.147
us was exploiting us,

00:10:06.147 --> 00:10:08.274
and it had come right to our front doors.

00:10:08.274 --> 00:10:13.195
Immediately thinking, What impact will this have on the water table?

00:10:13.195 --> 00:10:19.869
How will it affect People who at least able to move from the area.

00:10:19.869 --> 00:10:23.289
Dollie Burwell: I didn't want to sell my house and leave the community.

00:10:23.289 --> 00:10:27.168
Other people didn't want to sell their house or sell

00:10:27.168 --> 00:10:30.838
their land because we knew that there were

00:10:30.838 --> 00:10:35.051
other people who inherited their land from

00:10:35.051 --> 00:10:39.805
a great grandmother or grandfather that went back generations.

00:10:39.805 --> 00:10:42.683
I had the means to leave,

00:10:42.683 --> 00:10:50.566
but I didn't want to leave anybody who didn't have the means to leave.

00:10:50.566 --> 00:10:54.654
Floyd Mckissick Jr.: That PCB landfill was the type of thing that would

00:10:54.654 --> 00:10:57.156
mobilize people who might have been a

00:10:57.156 --> 00:11:00.117
little bit divergent in their thoughts and beliefs sometimes,

00:11:00.117 --> 00:11:04.288
might not even thought about the same strategies for engagement.

00:11:04.288 --> 00:11:10.044
But when the landfill was announced and the landfill was becoming a reality,

00:11:10.044 --> 00:11:15.132
it was time to come together and fight together and puck back.

00:11:15.132 --> 00:11:17.218
Ken Ferruccio: Look at the epic story,

00:11:17.218 --> 00:11:20.638
environmental justice, environmental civil rights, environmental racism.

00:11:20.638 --> 00:11:23.432
Look at this story. It'll never die.

00:11:23.432 --> 00:11:26.686
It's already transcended into legend.

00:11:26.686 --> 00:11:28.479
It's not going anywhere,

00:11:28.479 --> 00:11:30.106
and it's not going into history.

00:11:30.106 --> 00:11:31.482
That will always be there.

00:11:31.482 --> 00:11:32.983
The precedents will be there.

00:11:32.983 --> 00:11:38.864
The inspirations will be there to inspire communities that really without it,

00:11:38.864 --> 00:11:42.326
would probably just give up hope and either make an adjustment,

00:11:42.326 --> 00:11:46.997
move or just get ready to adjust to horrible circumstances.

00:11:59.885 --> 00:12:05.015
Rev. William Kearney: Soul City was awesome idea inspired by

00:12:05.015 --> 00:12:10.688
Attorney Floyd McKissick about bringing opportunity to a rural community as an example,

00:12:10.688 --> 00:12:13.691
a city that's pretty much managed by Blacks,

00:12:13.691 --> 00:12:15.776
but welcoming to all.

00:12:16.318 --> 00:12:19.530
S. Charmaine McKissick-Melton: When they bought the land for Soul City,

00:12:19.530 --> 00:12:24.285
it was proposed for 50,000 people over a period of 20 to 30 years.

00:12:24.285 --> 00:12:25.828
We had the groundbreaking,

00:12:25.828 --> 00:12:30.541
I believe, September of 73.

00:12:30.541 --> 00:12:33.627
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: Floyd McKissick was the first to talk about developing

00:12:33.627 --> 00:12:37.047
a city in a predominantly African American community,

00:12:37.047 --> 00:12:40.092
a metropolis, amidst poverty,

00:12:40.092 --> 00:12:43.345
the notion of putting down infrastructure.

00:12:43.345 --> 00:12:47.767
Most of the people were working at that time in agriculture and tobacco.

00:12:47.767 --> 00:12:53.189
But Floyd saw an opportunity for people to not necessarily leave the farm,

00:12:53.189 --> 00:12:59.528
but do other work to generate family revenue other than farming.

00:12:59.737 --> 00:13:04.867
Dollie Burwell: Floyd McKissick was the founder of Soul City.

00:13:04.867 --> 00:13:08.788
He was just all about his people.

00:13:08.788 --> 00:13:15.669
I think that's what attracted a lot of people to believe in Soul City.

00:13:16.462 --> 00:13:20.674
Floyd Mckissick Jr.: You understand you had a county that was 68% Black,

00:13:20.674 --> 00:13:23.886
but they had never elected a public official that was black.

00:13:23.886 --> 00:13:27.890
I think what people could see was that the dollars that were coming in from

00:13:27.890 --> 00:13:30.100
Soul City and building those roads and building

00:13:30.100 --> 00:13:33.020
that infrastructure were also bringing jobs.

00:13:33.020 --> 00:13:36.106
It was also beginning to bring growth and development.

00:13:36.106 --> 00:13:37.441
A lot of the fears,

00:13:37.441 --> 00:13:42.446
apprehensions, and concerns were overcome by cost of that change.

00:13:44.490 --> 00:13:48.077
There was a sign right out there in Oxford that

00:13:48.077 --> 00:13:51.789
said the Ku Klux Klan Walton's you to Grandville County.

00:13:51.789 --> 00:13:56.836
It was my father talking to Mayor Corn Hugh Curran of the city of Oxford,

00:13:56.836 --> 00:14:01.215
saying it's time for that sign to go down. It needs to come down.

00:14:01.215 --> 00:14:02.967
Mayor Curran went, in fact,

00:14:02.967 --> 00:14:04.260
to the Ku Klux Klan.

00:14:04.260 --> 00:14:06.345
He met with him and said, Look,

00:14:06.345 --> 00:14:10.224
perhaps he didn't do it because it was morally the right thing to do,

00:14:10.224 --> 00:14:11.934
but to say, it's bad for business.

00:14:11.934 --> 00:14:14.478
We need to bring it down because we want jobs.

00:14:14.478 --> 00:14:15.688
We want growth development.

00:14:15.688 --> 00:14:18.649
In fact, that sign came down.

00:14:20.734 --> 00:14:24.071
Rep. Eva Clayton: I was engaged with Soul City as

00:14:24.071 --> 00:14:28.951
the director of the Soul City Foundation.

00:14:28.951 --> 00:14:31.036
Under the Soul City Foundation,

00:14:31.036 --> 00:14:33.163
I had responsibility of building Soul Tech,

00:14:33.163 --> 00:14:35.749
which was an incubator for businesses.

00:14:35.749 --> 00:14:41.338
Soul City not only was the idea of bringing services and commerce,

00:14:41.338 --> 00:14:44.675
but it also was the beginning of many things.

00:14:44.675 --> 00:14:52.349
Rural Health in the United States started in Warren County at Soul City.

00:14:52.349 --> 00:14:57.938
By the same man who created rural health across the United States.

00:14:57.938 --> 00:14:59.982
His name is Jim Bernstein.

00:14:59.982 --> 00:15:05.154
Started that incubator program at Soul Tech.

00:15:07.406 --> 00:15:13.495
Soul City brought not only attention to Warren County,

00:15:13.495 --> 00:15:19.585
but brought an energy and a possibility and a hope and aspiration.

00:15:19.585 --> 00:15:20.961
Something could be done.

00:15:20.961 --> 00:15:23.213
We're not lost in the wilderness.

00:15:23.213 --> 00:15:25.466
You had to have the will to do it.

00:15:25.466 --> 00:15:31.722
That's the continuation and the aspiration of Soul City.

00:15:31.722 --> 00:15:35.851
Rev. William Kearney: On one end, we had this hopefulness through Soul City,

00:15:35.851 --> 00:15:37.853
something new and bigger.

00:15:37.853 --> 00:15:43.150
On the other side, we've had identified as a marginalized

00:15:43.150 --> 00:15:45.402
community where we got dumped on.

00:15:46.445 --> 00:15:50.032
Floyd Mckissick Jr.: Had it not been for Jesse Helms

00:15:50.032 --> 00:15:53.661
and launching attacks against the project,

00:15:53.661 --> 00:15:56.747
that pretty much brought it to a standstill,

00:15:56.747 --> 00:16:00.876
I think the project would have continued far longer.

00:16:00.876 --> 00:16:05.297
Unfortunately, Helms made many false accusations relating to

00:16:05.297 --> 00:16:11.679
financial mismanagement and proprieties and basically brought development to a halt.

00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:18.560
Dollie Burwell: Even out of Soul City grew the Warren County Political Action Council,

00:16:18.560 --> 00:16:26.402
which is still active very much in the community for the purpose of electing Blacks.

00:16:26.402 --> 00:16:30.239
S. Charmaine McKissick-Melton: The state interpreted that Warren County,

00:16:30.239 --> 00:16:33.575
maybe we'll get some resistance.

00:16:33.575 --> 00:16:36.078
Look at the population with a small population.

00:16:36.078 --> 00:16:42.167
Look at the content of this population being mostly minority black.

00:16:42.960 --> 00:16:47.172
Where is the political resistance to that?

00:16:47.172 --> 00:16:51.051
Mm, little do they know.

00:16:52.094 --> 00:16:56.348
What I was saying, Soul City having inspired people.

00:16:56.348 --> 00:17:01.937
There was a residue of people who wanted to not only build,

00:17:01.937 --> 00:17:07.276
but there was a residue of people who would fight.

00:17:29.298 --> 00:17:32.718
Prof. Lameshia Whittington: All right. Good evening.

00:17:32.718 --> 00:17:34.470
How is everyone this afternoon?

00:17:34.470 --> 00:17:36.638
All right. There we go. There we go.

00:17:36.638 --> 00:17:39.975
I hope we are excited to be in this space

00:17:39.975 --> 00:17:44.438
this evening to hear a robust and historic conversation,

00:17:44.438 --> 00:17:49.151
not just historic in the nature of presenting and discussing history with history makers,

00:17:49.151 --> 00:17:51.278
but in making history tonight on

00:17:51.278 --> 00:17:55.365
the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Environmental Justice Movement.

00:17:55.365 --> 00:17:58.827
Today, we all have the esteemed privilege of being in the presence of

00:17:58.827 --> 00:18:03.332
the originators of the movement and allies to discuss the Warren County protests.

00:18:03.332 --> 00:18:04.875
The Honorable Eva Clayton,

00:18:04.875 --> 00:18:07.628
who served as the first African American to represent

00:18:07.628 --> 00:18:12.466
North Carolina in the House since 1898 Reconstruction.

00:18:15.511 --> 00:18:18.097
On the pathway to politics,

00:18:18.097 --> 00:18:22.684
how did the environmental protests at Warren County influence your political pathway?

00:18:22.684 --> 00:18:24.394
Did you continue to work with leaders of

00:18:24.394 --> 00:18:27.731
the Warren County Environmental Justice Movement following the protest as well?

00:18:27.731 --> 00:18:31.110
And please feel free to include Soul City in there, I do love it.

00:18:33.195 --> 00:18:38.367
Eva Clayton: How I got to Warren County is because my husband was recruited by

00:18:38.367 --> 00:18:42.996
a white attorney in Warren County who wanted to start an integrated law firm,

00:18:42.996 --> 00:18:48.085
which represented the very first integrate law firm in the state of North Carolina.

00:18:48.085 --> 00:18:51.255
It was a result of that invitation,

00:18:51.255 --> 00:18:53.048
I happened to be in Warren County.

00:18:53.048 --> 00:18:57.219
By the way, that lawyer was Moses' cousin,

00:18:57.219 --> 00:18:59.471
too so it's in the family.

00:19:00.264 --> 00:19:04.309
At the time of the PCB announcement,

00:19:04.309 --> 00:19:10.065
I happened to be writing working for the governor who put PCB in Warren County.

00:19:10.065 --> 00:19:14.319
I had been signed up with him for the first term.

00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:16.697
When I heard the announcement of the PCB,

00:19:16.697 --> 00:19:20.117
I thought it was time for me not to go second term

00:19:21.410 --> 00:19:25.372
Deborah Ferruccio: This largely democratic county was not

00:19:25.372 --> 00:19:28.876
about to let this Democratic governor roll over us.

00:19:28.876 --> 00:19:30.502
They stood up to him and in fact,

00:19:30.502 --> 00:19:32.129
Reverend Ramey is the one when we

00:19:32.129 --> 00:19:34.047
met with the governor who looked at Governor Hunt and said,

00:19:34.047 --> 00:19:37.092
Look, we helped put you in office, Governor Hunt.

00:19:37.092 --> 00:19:40.971
Now, we expected you to listen to us what we need.

00:19:40.971 --> 00:19:43.974
We don't need this in a poor county like Warren County,

00:19:43.974 --> 00:19:45.517
we'll never come out of this.

00:19:45.517 --> 00:19:48.228
Rev. Willie Ramey III: He assured us that everything was going to be right,

00:19:48.228 --> 00:19:51.190
that they started talking about the landfill,

00:19:51.190 --> 00:19:55.027
that it was going to be made leak-proof,

00:19:55.027 --> 00:20:00.199
that it was not going to contaminate the water system.

00:20:00.199 --> 00:20:03.076
We fought against that, also.

00:20:03.076 --> 00:20:07.956
We don't want you to put this dirt in our county

00:20:07.956 --> 00:20:12.794
because if you build a landfill to put dirt in here,

00:20:12.794 --> 00:20:15.589
then you're going to bring dirt in from somewhere else.

00:20:15.589 --> 00:20:19.176
If we start a contamination site here,

00:20:19.176 --> 00:20:24.765
then what is going to stop another company from spilling something else?

00:20:24.765 --> 00:20:28.810
Then we end up being a contamination dump county,

00:20:28.810 --> 00:20:30.646
and this is something that we don't want.

00:20:30.646 --> 00:20:35.442
Now, it even got to the point that we call it Hunt dump.

00:20:35.692 --> 00:20:38.195
Ken Ferruccio: We had four years of due process.

00:20:38.195 --> 00:20:40.405
We had three litigations, actually,

00:20:40.405 --> 00:20:42.699
and a lot of research.

00:20:42.699 --> 00:20:45.118
By that time in 1981,

00:20:45.118 --> 00:20:48.789
the state had passed the Waste Management Act,

00:20:48.789 --> 00:20:51.541
and the Waste Management Act gave the governor the right,

00:20:51.541 --> 00:20:52.876
authorized the governor to make

00:20:52.876 --> 00:20:56.755
the final decision concerning the location of these sites,

00:20:56.755 --> 00:21:01.051
and to do it even prior to public hearing or with no public hearings.

00:21:01.051 --> 00:21:04.596
Once we knew that it was inevitable

00:21:04.596 --> 00:21:08.725
that they were not going to listen to our research-based opposition,

00:21:08.725 --> 00:21:10.936
we knew it was time to organize.

00:21:10.936 --> 00:21:15.816
People came from New York and from Atlanta United Church of Christ,

00:21:15.816 --> 00:21:17.067
Commission of Racial Justice.

00:21:17.067 --> 00:21:22.698
But it was just a whole multicultural convergence,

00:21:22.698 --> 00:21:26.201
really on Warren County for these demonstrations.

00:21:26.201 --> 00:21:27.995
Floyd Mckissick Jr.: It was that special synergy.

00:21:27.995 --> 00:21:29.997
You had Ken and Deborah Ferruccio.

00:21:29.997 --> 00:21:31.915
They were white, they were progressive.

00:21:31.915 --> 00:21:37.004
They were liberal and outspoken and media savvy.

00:21:37.004 --> 00:21:39.047
You had Dollie Burwell,

00:21:39.047 --> 00:21:41.174
who was community activists,

00:21:41.174 --> 00:21:43.593
somebody who was well known and well regarded,

00:21:43.593 --> 00:21:46.179
involved with a lot of the Black churches in the area,

00:21:46.179 --> 00:21:50.350
involved with the United Church of Christ back in that point in time.

00:21:50.350 --> 00:21:53.979
Reverend Leon White was one of the great champions of Ben Chavis.

00:21:53.979 --> 00:21:59.901
He was the one out there fighting for Ben to get out of jail with The Wilmington Ten.

00:21:59.901 --> 00:22:03.739
Ben getting released and Ben being

00:22:03.739 --> 00:22:07.492
outspoken in the forefront was important and significant.

00:22:07.492 --> 00:22:13.623
You had Reverend Brown from Coley Springs church being active and engaged and involved.

00:22:13.623 --> 00:22:16.918
You had this synergy that was coming together,

00:22:16.918 --> 00:22:22.424
bringing together factions of the community in Warren County and beyond that were so

00:22:22.424 --> 00:22:25.594
deeply and passionately concerned about

00:22:25.594 --> 00:22:29.389
this injustice that was being brought to Warren County,

00:22:29.389 --> 00:22:34.436
this blight that put people's lives potentially at risk that also was going to have

00:22:34.436 --> 00:22:37.689
a devastating impact on Warren County to grow and

00:22:37.689 --> 00:22:41.651
attract development in a place where people needed those jobs,

00:22:41.651 --> 00:22:45.947
at a place where people were looking for a better quality of life.

00:22:45.947 --> 00:22:49.534
It was the convergence of all those factors that was rare,

00:22:49.534 --> 00:22:52.120
it was unique, it was different,

00:22:52.120 --> 00:22:54.289
but more importantly, it was profound.

00:22:54.289 --> 00:22:58.502
It became the very forefront of what's come to known

00:22:58.502 --> 00:23:03.673
today as the environmental justice movement.

00:23:03.715 --> 00:23:08.595
Deborah Ferruccio: For six weeks, an unprecedented multiracial coalition of hundreds of

00:23:08.595 --> 00:23:13.934
citizens and our supporters dramatized with civil disobedience and direct action,

00:23:13.934 --> 00:23:16.561
the injustice of toxic aggression.

00:23:16.561 --> 00:23:19.481
We marched in protest against the forced burial of

00:23:19.481 --> 00:23:22.359
some 10,000 truckloads containing 60,000

00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:28.657
tons of toxic PCB contaminated soil and a landfill just above our groundwater.

00:23:28.657 --> 00:23:31.827
We were unified around a common cause.

00:23:31.827 --> 00:23:33.995
Our strategy was to be informed,

00:23:33.995 --> 00:23:37.666
dignified, respectful, unyielding, and non-violent.

00:23:37.666 --> 00:23:42.587
We were strengthened by the ties that bound us and were an uncorrupted grassroots force,

00:23:42.587 --> 00:23:48.135
aware that we were effecting a significant historic rupture.

00:23:48.552 --> 00:23:52.264
Jenny Labalme: They lay in the roads not just to stop

00:23:52.264 --> 00:23:55.767
the trucks from dumping PCB-tainted soil,

00:23:55.767 --> 00:23:59.062
they fought for environmental justice,

00:23:59.062 --> 00:24:03.233
the right of all communities to a safe environment,

00:24:03.233 --> 00:24:08.738
and the right to participate in decisions that would affect their lives.

00:24:09.239 --> 00:24:13.618
Dollie Burwell: The first day of the demonstration,

00:24:13.618 --> 00:24:21.418
I got my daughter ready to go to school and she knew that because Sunday before it was

00:24:21.418 --> 00:24:25.005
Floyd McKissick a lot of us who come together and

00:24:25.005 --> 00:24:29.843
had a rally because we knew the trucks was going to start coming that Monday morning.

00:24:29.843 --> 00:24:31.928
About a quarter to eight,

00:24:31.928 --> 00:24:33.346
I'm rushing through,

00:24:33.346 --> 00:24:35.015
let me get out of here.

00:24:35.015 --> 00:24:36.975
I see her sitting on the couch,

00:24:36.975 --> 00:24:40.145
and I'm getting upset as a mom.

00:24:40.145 --> 00:24:43.690
Why'd you then get on that bus?

00:24:43.690 --> 00:24:48.778
She said, "Because I'm going to the march with you, Mama."

00:24:48.778 --> 00:24:50.864
I said, "Kim,

00:24:50.864 --> 00:24:54.784
you cannot go to the march with me."

00:24:54.784 --> 00:24:56.620
She said, "Well,

00:24:56.620 --> 00:24:59.706
if you go, why can't I go?"

00:25:00.081 --> 00:25:06.379
It just hit me that what am I going to tell her?

00:25:06.379 --> 00:25:12.219
What am I teaching her? I said I might get arrested.

00:25:12.219 --> 00:25:36.117
UNKNOWN_1: [BACKGROUND]

00:25:36.117 --> 00:25:37.536
Jenny Labalme: The first day of the protest,

00:25:37.536 --> 00:25:40.163
it made the CBS national news.

00:25:40.163 --> 00:25:43.375
I don't know whether CBS was down there,

00:25:43.375 --> 00:25:47.504
or they picked it up from a local CBS affiliate and

00:25:47.504 --> 00:25:52.259
then it made the news with Dan Rather at the time.

00:25:52.259 --> 00:25:53.552
MALE_2: In North Carolina today,

00:25:53.552 --> 00:25:58.306
a PCB cleanup operation became an object of protest and 76 arrests.

00:25:58.306 --> 00:26:01.643
Wyatt Andrews reports the demonstrators had nothing against the cleanup,

00:26:01.643 --> 00:26:06.189
but plenty of qualms about where the PCBs were being shipped.

00:26:06.481 --> 00:26:10.610
Rev. Leon White: We going to wait for the trucks.

00:26:10.610 --> 00:26:12.696
Well, we got to secure our blockade.

00:26:12.696 --> 00:26:16.825
You go secure it over there. Just show me.

00:26:16.825 --> 00:26:23.206
Back up my children [inaudible] we've got to set a blockade.

00:26:23.957 --> 00:26:27.085
We will go for the blockade.

00:26:27.085 --> 00:26:30.922
We got to set up the blockade.

00:26:31.131 --> 00:26:34.259
Trooper: Where are you wanting to go Reverend?

00:26:34.259 --> 00:26:38.513
Rev. Leon White: I want to go down there at the dump site.

00:26:40.974 --> 00:26:45.729
I see the signs, the land belonged to the people and what we going to

00:26:45.729 --> 00:26:53.278
do is put up a human blockade.

00:26:53.278 --> 00:26:56.781
I know y'all are our friends, I ain't worried about you.

00:26:56.865 --> 00:26:59.159
I know you have to obey the law,

00:26:59.159 --> 00:27:01.536
I understand that but I know where your heart is,

00:27:01.536 --> 00:27:04.164
so we all together, so we'll work that out.

00:27:04.164 --> 00:27:06.207
Trooper: Reverend we've got some trucks coming in here

00:27:06.207 --> 00:27:08.293
in a minute that's got to go in there.

00:27:08.293 --> 00:27:11.421
Rev. Leon White: That's why we're here and we say we going to stop it.

00:27:11.421 --> 00:27:13.923
Trooper: Well, we're going to ask

00:27:13.923 --> 00:27:16.968
you to move over to the side, so the trucks to can come through.

00:27:16.968 --> 00:27:18.303
Rev. Leon White: We can't do that.

00:27:18.303 --> 00:27:20.388
Trooper: Well whenever they get here,

00:27:20.388 --> 00:27:23.433
and if you don't move, you will be impeding.

00:27:23.433 --> 00:27:26.311
Rev. Leon White: Okay I understand that.

00:27:29.022 --> 00:27:34.861
Wayne Moseley: The governor sent a proclamation by way of the highway patrol,

00:27:34.861 --> 00:27:38.073
which was read to us stating that we were in violation

00:27:38.073 --> 00:27:42.661
and that we would be arrested if we do not disperse.

00:27:42.661 --> 00:27:49.626
At which time, 66 of us laid in the highway to block the trucks.

00:27:51.294 --> 00:27:54.631
Dollie Burwell: I was arrested and I think they didn't

00:27:54.631 --> 00:27:58.259
process us until late in the afternoon

00:27:58.259 --> 00:28:05.809
that day and when I got- I'm going to say I didn't get home until about six o'clock or 6:30.

00:28:05.809 --> 00:28:09.104
I saw her on the national news.

00:28:09.104 --> 00:28:12.107
MALE_2: Kimberly Burwell was arrested 10-years-old.

00:28:12.107 --> 00:28:13.441
She's in the fifth grade.

00:28:13.441 --> 00:28:15.777
Kimberly Burwell: I'm scared I might catch cancer.

00:28:15.777 --> 00:28:18.196
Dollie Burwell: They took her to Juvenile Hall,

00:28:18.196 --> 00:28:25.245
and was a couple of other kids that they took to Juvenile Hall.

00:28:25.245 --> 00:28:43.722
MALE_4: You're in violation of state law. You are all under arrest.

00:28:43.722 --> 00:29:14.419
UNKNOWN_1: [NOISE]

00:29:14.419 --> 00:29:17.464
Mary Somerville: It's just something about that sound once you

00:29:17.464 --> 00:29:21.092
lock a person up you see the look in the eyes.

00:29:21.092 --> 00:29:22.343
Once they get behind,

00:29:22.343 --> 00:29:24.345
they say it's like they're a different person,

00:29:24.345 --> 00:29:27.849
their whole demeanor will change.

00:29:33.229 --> 00:29:36.649
The way the law was written is

00:29:36.649 --> 00:29:40.487
that you could put as many in a cell as you could get in there,

00:29:40.487 --> 00:29:44.115
except you couldn't put them directly on the floor.

00:29:44.115 --> 00:29:46.576
They got away with being able to have

00:29:46.576 --> 00:29:51.831
overcrowded jails because I could actually put them on a sheet,

00:29:51.831 --> 00:29:55.710
anything that would separate them from the floor.

00:29:57.086 --> 00:30:02.801
I didn't know that the PCB or the protest was even going on.

00:30:02.801 --> 00:30:05.470
But about 10 o'clock that morning,

00:30:05.470 --> 00:30:10.350
I got a call from the sheriff and said, "Mary,

00:30:10.350 --> 00:30:14.103
you need to be aware that they're going to start to

00:30:14.103 --> 00:30:18.483
the people like they're and after laying all in the road in front of a dump truck.

00:30:18.483 --> 00:30:22.570
The highway patrol, they're going to start arresting them and bringing them down."

00:30:22.570 --> 00:30:24.280
I remember asking him,

00:30:24.280 --> 00:30:26.032
"Where am I supposed to put them?"

00:30:26.032 --> 00:30:29.035
He was telling me how many it was.

00:30:29.035 --> 00:30:31.120
I said, "Where am I supposed to put them?"

00:30:31.120 --> 00:30:32.831
He actually just hung up.

00:30:32.831 --> 00:30:36.042
Before he could literally get off the phone,

00:30:36.042 --> 00:30:38.169
I looked at the door downstairs,

00:30:38.169 --> 00:30:41.631
and it was dust all across the grounds.

00:30:41.631 --> 00:30:43.258
There were cars, highway patrol,

00:30:43.258 --> 00:30:46.719
deputies, yard was full of them.

00:30:48.763 --> 00:30:54.853
The jail has a capacity of holding 34 inmates.

00:30:54.853 --> 00:30:57.230
With PCB disturbances,

00:30:57.230 --> 00:30:59.399
I'd have them on the floor,

00:30:59.399 --> 00:31:03.069
but once we got all ourselves before the magistrate,

00:31:03.069 --> 00:31:07.949
he set up his little desk and chair out here.

00:31:07.949 --> 00:31:14.914
He said, just send them in and he would do the process at his convenience.

00:31:14.914 --> 00:31:22.255
As the highway patrol and the deputies would bring carloads of protesters in,

00:31:22.255 --> 00:31:23.965
this is where we would put them,

00:31:23.965 --> 00:31:28.803
here all around the fence.

00:31:28.803 --> 00:31:31.472
They would be at the fence.

00:31:32.390 --> 00:31:36.728
The outside would come to the fence,

00:31:36.728 --> 00:31:39.731
and they would be talking as if they were

00:31:39.731 --> 00:31:42.901
really inmates talking to others on the outside.

00:31:42.901 --> 00:31:45.278
MALE_5: You may bring your PCB.

00:31:45.278 --> 00:31:47.655
UNKNOWN_2: You may bring your PCB.

00:31:47.655 --> 00:31:48.656
MALE_5: But I am.

00:31:48.656 --> 00:31:49.866
UNKNOWN_2: But I am.

00:31:49.866 --> 00:31:51.242
MALE_5: Somebody.

00:31:51.242 --> 00:31:52.577
UNKNOWN_2: Somebody.

00:31:52.577 --> 00:31:54.287
MALE_5: I may go to jail.

00:31:54.287 --> 00:31:55.997
UNKNOWN_2: I may go to jail.

00:31:55.997 --> 00:31:56.998
MALE_5: But I am.

00:31:56.998 --> 00:31:58.041
UNKNOWN_2: But I am.

00:31:58.041 --> 00:31:59.375
MALE_5: Somebody.

00:31:59.375 --> 00:32:00.752
UNKNOWN_2: Somebody.

00:32:00.752 --> 00:32:01.753
MALE_5: Soul power.

00:32:01.753 --> 00:32:02.754
UNKNOWN_2: Soul power.

00:32:02.754 --> 00:32:04.088
MALE_5: People's power.

00:32:04.088 --> 00:32:05.423
UNKNOWN_2: People's power.

00:32:05.423 --> 00:32:06.466
MALE_5: Love power.

00:32:06.466 --> 00:32:07.175
UNKNOWN_2: Love power.

00:32:07.175 --> 00:32:07.926
MALE_5: Right on.

00:32:07.926 --> 00:32:08.718
UNKNOWN_2: Right on.

00:32:08.718 --> 00:32:10.887
MALE_5: We don't want no PCB.

00:32:10.887 --> 00:32:15.975
UNKNOWN_2: We don't want no PCB.

00:32:15.975 --> 00:32:32.200
If you want your freedom stomp your feet.

00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:41.417
If you want your freedom jump and shout.

00:32:41.417 --> 00:32:46.839
[MUSIC].

00:32:46.839 --> 00:32:58.726
FEMALE_3: You were talking about the fantastic.

00:32:58.726 --> 00:33:00.728
Jenny Labalme: That's the protest song that's in my book.

00:33:00.728 --> 00:33:03.690
That's an original. I wonder where they found that.

00:33:03.690 --> 00:33:06.442
FEMALE_3: Was that original, mother? There's your book.

00:33:06.442 --> 00:33:08.444
Jenny Labalme: There's my book.

00:33:10.196 --> 00:33:12.407
FEMALE_3: Song I did like playing that.

00:33:12.407 --> 00:33:15.368
Jenny Labalme: Yeah. That's a photo of mine.

00:33:15.368 --> 00:33:18.871
FEMALE_3: Then went out to where the protesters.

00:33:19.372 --> 00:33:21.874
Jenny Labalme: Dolly is [OVERLAPPING].

00:33:21.874 --> 00:33:23.042
FEMALE_3: Which one?

00:33:23.042 --> 00:33:30.383
Jenny Labalme: She is the second one from right. I didn't take that.

00:33:31.426 --> 00:33:36.139
You can see they're all lying there ahead of time.

00:33:36.139 --> 00:33:40.059
I saw there was a shot that needed to be taken.

00:33:41.269 --> 00:33:43.312
I don't know.

00:33:43.312 --> 00:33:47.817
I think some of these kids are in the photo.

00:33:47.817 --> 00:33:56.242
Then I'm running here and then took the photo that's over here.

00:33:58.995 --> 00:34:03.124
Right here. But I didn't know any of these kids,

00:34:03.124 --> 00:34:06.294
and this is one of those with the framing.

00:34:06.294 --> 00:34:08.921
Remember when we were talking last night?

00:34:08.921 --> 00:34:12.675
Just the the framing of it was pure luck.

00:34:12.675 --> 00:34:16.512
The first day I went up to the protest,

00:34:16.512 --> 00:34:19.807
the songs are what pulled me in.

00:34:20.266 --> 00:34:23.352
We don't want no PCBs.

00:34:23.352 --> 00:34:25.646
Give them to Hunt dump. Don't give them to me.

00:34:25.646 --> 00:34:28.608
I remember them like yesterday.

00:34:29.484 --> 00:34:34.530
After people spoke, I remember them singing,

00:34:34.530 --> 00:34:35.698
We Shall Overcome,

00:34:35.698 --> 00:34:38.159
which everyone has heard.

00:34:38.159 --> 00:34:42.413
They linked arms like this and swayed back and forth.

00:34:42.413 --> 00:34:43.915
I thought, my gosh.

00:34:43.915 --> 00:34:46.167
Not that I hadn't heard songs like that,

00:34:46.167 --> 00:34:51.672
but just being there in person reverberated in my soul.

00:34:51.672 --> 00:34:55.301
Then, when I went out to photograph them marching,

00:34:55.301 --> 00:35:00.348
I caught the emotions of the people,

00:35:00.348 --> 00:35:01.432
and the anger,

00:35:01.432 --> 00:35:02.767
and the disbelief,

00:35:02.767 --> 00:35:07.480
and the indignation at the injustice of a landfill

00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:13.486
being cited that didn't even meet EPA standards at the time.

00:35:15.780 --> 00:35:19.117
People were very welcoming to me.

00:35:19.117 --> 00:35:20.326
I had to go back,

00:35:20.326 --> 00:35:22.453
develop the film myself,

00:35:22.453 --> 00:35:26.749
and I do remember bringing up copies of some of the prints,

00:35:26.749 --> 00:35:28.918
possibly my contact sheets.

00:35:28.918 --> 00:35:31.963
I think once people saw what I was doing,

00:35:31.963 --> 00:35:34.257
not that their guard was up before,

00:35:34.257 --> 00:35:37.301
but I think they became more comfortable with me.

00:35:37.301 --> 00:35:41.556
I had the luxury when I had free time and wasn't in

00:35:41.556 --> 00:35:47.019
class to go back up to Warren County as often as I could.

00:35:48.020 --> 00:35:52.400
Wayne Moseley: We met at Coley Springs Baptist Church,

00:35:52.400 --> 00:35:57.155
a meeting place and logistically within two miles of the dump.

00:35:57.155 --> 00:36:03.703
We would march from Coley Springs Baptist Church down to the dump almost daily.

00:36:03.703 --> 00:36:06.539
Deborah Ferruccio: They were just walking down to that landfill,

00:36:06.539 --> 00:36:09.208
walking down the freedom road.

00:36:09.208 --> 00:36:10.877
That's what everybody was doing.

00:36:10.877 --> 00:36:12.920
This became known as Hunt's dump because

00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:16.841
Governor Hunt worked really hard to put this landfill in.

00:36:16.841 --> 00:36:21.929
This was a big sign that was put up that was paid for by one of the citizens.

00:36:21.929 --> 00:36:23.639
I think it was Dr. Massey.

00:36:23.639 --> 00:36:26.851
When we got down to the state highway patrol,

00:36:26.851 --> 00:36:29.103
and they started arresting Ken and Reverend White,

00:36:29.103 --> 00:36:31.022
then that's when everybody went down,

00:36:31.022 --> 00:36:34.609
and they began the arrest.

00:36:34.609 --> 00:36:36.903
Dollie Burwell: People who couldn't be arrested,

00:36:36.903 --> 00:36:41.449
they cooked, there were a lot of moral support.

00:36:41.449 --> 00:36:43.743
They organized the rallies,

00:36:43.743 --> 00:36:48.706
and they would always have someone at the church in the mornings to make coffee.

00:36:48.706 --> 00:36:51.500
The whole community, I think,

00:36:51.500 --> 00:36:54.253
especially the Afton community,

00:36:54.253 --> 00:36:58.090
found a way to lend their support,

00:36:58.090 --> 00:36:59.926
whether they got arrested or not.

00:36:59.926 --> 00:37:04.347
Deborah Ferruccio: Other people signed their property over so we could be bailed out of jail.

00:37:04.347 --> 00:37:10.186
It was people from all economic backgrounds, all educational backgrounds.

00:37:10.186 --> 00:37:12.313
Everybody got involved at some level.

00:37:12.313 --> 00:37:13.773
Rev. Willie Ramey III: When we talked about people,

00:37:13.773 --> 00:37:14.899
it wasn't just Black.

00:37:14.899 --> 00:37:18.569
It was we as a county, we must fight.

00:37:18.569 --> 00:37:21.322
We had people that came out of Hollister.

00:37:21.322 --> 00:37:24.158
This is down to where the Saponi tribe is.

00:37:24.158 --> 00:37:27.620
It's not just one group of people.

00:37:27.620 --> 00:37:29.580
It's the people of Warren County.

00:37:29.580 --> 00:37:32.833
It was an interracial mix of people.

00:37:32.833 --> 00:37:35.586
Wayne Moseley: Some of the community ladies went home

00:37:35.586 --> 00:37:38.714
and fried some chicken, cook some biscuits,

00:37:38.714 --> 00:37:45.680
and they brought it back to the jail and asked if they could feed the prisoners.

00:37:45.680 --> 00:37:51.185
They said, "No." They didn't take that answer.

00:37:51.185 --> 00:37:53.646
They stood across the street.

00:37:53.646 --> 00:37:56.941
We would say, "Throw me a wing,

00:37:56.941 --> 00:37:59.860
or chop me a breast."

00:37:59.860 --> 00:38:04.865
They would throw the biscuit or the piece of chicken over the road,

00:38:04.865 --> 00:38:06.033
over the fence,

00:38:06.033 --> 00:38:08.577
and into our waiting hands.

00:38:08.577 --> 00:38:09.829
Dollie Burwell: Ms. Moseley,

00:38:09.829 --> 00:38:11.580
that's Wayne's mother,

00:38:11.580 --> 00:38:18.337
would babysit and drive along the march route and hand people water,

00:38:18.337 --> 00:38:21.132
make sure they had a snack or something.

00:38:21.132 --> 00:38:22.508
Angela Dunston: It was about leadership,

00:38:22.508 --> 00:38:26.304
but you also had people who cared about people.

00:38:26.304 --> 00:38:28.597
We lived across the lake,

00:38:28.597 --> 00:38:33.269
but this happened 15 miles down the road in Coley Springs.

00:38:33.269 --> 00:38:35.479
Just because I lived on Lake Gaston or

00:38:35.479 --> 00:38:38.107
someone else lived in Coley Springs, it didn't matter.

00:38:38.107 --> 00:38:42.278
We were all a part of the United Warren County.

00:38:42.278 --> 00:38:44.947
What hurt one hurt the other.

00:38:44.947 --> 00:38:47.241
That was why we came together,

00:38:47.241 --> 00:38:48.617
and we worked together.

00:38:48.617 --> 00:38:51.037
There are so many people again, like my aunts,

00:38:51.037 --> 00:38:53.622
and my grandmother, my grandmother was not going to get arrested.

00:38:53.622 --> 00:38:56.125
But she was one of those women who was behind

00:38:56.125 --> 00:38:59.545
the scenes calling other women an individual saying,

00:38:59.545 --> 00:39:00.796
"You should be out there.

00:39:00.796 --> 00:39:02.214
You should be a part of this."

00:39:02.214 --> 00:39:06.093
She was one of the women that they talked about who was cooking the fried chicken,

00:39:06.093 --> 00:39:09.764
and helping to throw it across the fence for the people that were in jail.

00:39:09.764 --> 00:39:15.603
There's an opportunity for anyone who wants to be a part of civic engagement.

00:39:15.603 --> 00:39:18.272
You've just got to figure out where you fit in,

00:39:18.272 --> 00:39:20.566
and then you've just got to do it.

00:39:21.776 --> 00:39:24.904
MALE_6: State officials say the PCBs,

00:39:24.904 --> 00:39:27.198
which have caused cancer in laboratory rats,

00:39:27.198 --> 00:39:30.034
can be safely put in this landfill because the soil

00:39:30.034 --> 00:39:33.287
here is above well water, the area remote.

00:39:33.287 --> 00:39:36.832
Warren County residents know they lost this fight today,

00:39:36.832 --> 00:39:40.252
but they are encouraged that they gave the state more opposition

00:39:40.252 --> 00:39:44.006
than expected from a county with just 17,000 people.

00:39:44.006 --> 00:39:45.424
MALE_7: Worth every second.

00:39:45.424 --> 00:39:46.550
MALE_8: Would you do it again?

00:39:46.550 --> 00:39:48.969
MALE_7: Yes, sir. I'll do it again.

00:39:48.969 --> 00:39:51.222
Deborah Ferruccio: You go get arrested at 10:00 in the morning,

00:39:51.222 --> 00:39:53.015
and you're not out till 4:00.

00:39:53.015 --> 00:39:54.725
Those are long hours,

00:39:54.725 --> 00:39:57.937
or you start at 9:00 in the morning.

00:39:57.937 --> 00:40:03.317
It takes you an hour and a half to slowly march down there and sing, and lay down.

00:40:03.317 --> 00:40:05.361
All of it was very time-consuming.

00:40:05.361 --> 00:40:06.904
Every day for six weeks,

00:40:06.904 --> 00:40:08.656
people marched and got arrested.

00:40:08.656 --> 00:40:10.116
Some days, there'd be 60,

00:40:10.116 --> 00:40:12.243
some that got arrested, and 200 marched.

00:40:12.243 --> 00:40:17.706
But there were more than 550 arrests total in that six weeks.

00:40:17.706 --> 00:40:21.419
That was pretty phenomenal because when you convince people,

00:40:21.419 --> 00:40:23.963
you can't imagine until you're in a situation like this,

00:40:23.963 --> 00:40:28.175
what it takes to convince people to get involved in civil disobedience,

00:40:28.175 --> 00:40:30.136
particularly when you're doing it,

00:40:30.136 --> 00:40:31.595
and it's not stopping it.

00:40:31.595 --> 00:40:33.139
The trucks were coming in, anyway.

00:40:33.139 --> 00:40:35.599
It slowed the trucks down. It didn't stop it.

00:40:35.599 --> 00:40:38.477
That's why it took so much time,

00:40:38.477 --> 00:40:41.063
and they had to work at night [LAUGHTER]

00:40:41.063 --> 00:41:28.819
[MUSIC].

00:41:28.819 --> 00:41:33.991
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: What Warren County did do for the first time was

00:41:33.991 --> 00:41:39.413
a direct intersection of the civil rights movement and the environmental movement.

00:41:39.413 --> 00:41:43.709
These two movements prior to Warren County were separate and apart.

00:41:43.709 --> 00:41:46.670
At Warren County, they intersected.

00:41:46.670 --> 00:41:52.676
Even the state troopers that were picking up children and women and putting them in jail,

00:41:52.676 --> 00:41:54.053
I could tell on their face,

00:41:54.053 --> 00:41:56.263
they knew they didn't want to do it,

00:41:56.263 --> 00:41:58.390
but they were ordered to do it.

00:41:59.016 --> 00:42:01.268
Some of the truck drivers,

00:42:01.268 --> 00:42:03.437
I saw their facial expression.

00:42:03.437 --> 00:42:05.481
They put those trucks in park.

00:42:05.481 --> 00:42:09.151
They were not going to roll over people lying in the street.

00:42:09.151 --> 00:42:11.278
Shauna Williams: The whole six weeks,

00:42:11.278 --> 00:42:12.905
the people who marched,

00:42:12.905 --> 00:42:14.323
the people who got arrested,

00:42:14.323 --> 00:42:15.950
they were very strategic,

00:42:15.950 --> 00:42:17.409
they were very smart.

00:42:17.409 --> 00:42:19.370
They didn't just go out there willy nilly,

00:42:19.370 --> 00:42:20.579
let's just see what's going to happen.

00:42:20.579 --> 00:42:22.414
They plotted, they planned.

00:42:22.414 --> 00:42:28.212
They contacted people in civil rights movement and religious organizations.

00:42:28.212 --> 00:42:29.713
They knew what they were doing.

00:42:29.713 --> 00:42:33.008
Overall, they were very careful to say to everybody,

00:42:33.008 --> 00:42:35.261
this should be peaceful and non violent.

00:42:35.261 --> 00:42:38.806
Of course, what better way to do that also is through young people's voices.

00:42:38.806 --> 00:42:41.767
People a lot of times won't listen to adults or you may

00:42:41.767 --> 00:42:46.814
not think about the importance of something on an adult.

00:42:46.814 --> 00:42:48.148
But when you see a child,

00:42:48.148 --> 00:42:50.943
it makes you go, this is important.

00:42:50.943 --> 00:42:54.321
This is something that we need to be worried about.

00:42:54.321 --> 00:42:56.615
I think it was a brilliant move on their part

00:42:56.615 --> 00:42:59.702
to have a youth day to have kids come out there.

00:43:17.845 --> 00:43:20.848
Angella Dunston: A lot of the younger folks,

00:43:20.848 --> 00:43:22.266
as you say, Children's Day,

00:43:22.266 --> 00:43:27.354
had made a plan to go and be a part of the protest.

00:43:27.354 --> 00:43:30.399
The one direction that we got from,

00:43:30.399 --> 00:43:33.944
and I'll just say from my mom and from our pastor was,

00:43:33.944 --> 00:43:37.114
if you don't have to be arrested, don't be arrested.

00:43:37.114 --> 00:43:39.158
But if you got to do it, you got to do it.

00:43:39.158 --> 00:43:42.161
I was one of the ones who wasn't arrested but was

00:43:42.161 --> 00:43:45.623
a part of that initiative because we felt like,

00:43:45.623 --> 00:43:48.000
as the youth of that time,

00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:49.543
we had to take a stand,

00:43:49.543 --> 00:43:50.961
and we are that next generation,

00:43:50.961 --> 00:43:53.130
and we've got to be involved in this, as well.

00:43:53.130 --> 00:44:04.975
PROTESTERS: [SINGING "This Little Light of Mine"].

00:44:04.975 --> 00:44:20.407
[NOISE]

00:44:20.407 --> 00:44:23.202
Cameron Oglesby: Addressing the climate crisis, addressing environmental issues,

00:44:23.202 --> 00:44:27.373
addressing environmental hazards, and injustices is about people.

00:44:27.373 --> 00:44:28.832
It's about us as individuals,

00:44:28.832 --> 00:44:30.125
but also us as a collective,

00:44:30.125 --> 00:44:32.461
our collective well being, our collective health.

00:44:32.461 --> 00:44:37.007
If we're not willing to hear out the people who are on

00:44:37.007 --> 00:44:42.012
the ground most impacted by these issues and incorporate not only their knowledge,

00:44:42.012 --> 00:44:44.723
whether it's ancestral knowledge, experiential knowledge,

00:44:44.723 --> 00:44:49.395
but their needs into the solutions that we are developing,

00:44:49.395 --> 00:44:51.480
then we're not really addressing the issue.

00:44:51.480 --> 00:44:55.734
I think that aligns with what the Warren County protest stood for.

00:44:55.734 --> 00:45:00.489
It aligns with why I see myself attempting to bring community,

00:45:00.489 --> 00:45:05.202
community voices, narratives into the storytelling,

00:45:05.202 --> 00:45:07.705
but also the solution building that I'm hoping to do.

00:45:07.705 --> 00:45:10.082
At its basis level, it's everything.

00:45:10.082 --> 00:45:12.209
Deborah Ferruccio: We were doing it for the future.

00:45:12.209 --> 00:45:15.170
We were doing it so we wouldn't be dumped on forever, and we would do it.

00:45:15.170 --> 00:45:19.508
We did it so that every community that was like us would realize,

00:45:19.508 --> 00:45:22.219
march before it's too late.

00:45:22.219 --> 00:45:25.973
We didn't know these things until the deal had been struck.

00:45:25.973 --> 00:45:27.933
All this behind the scenes.

00:45:27.933 --> 00:45:31.603
If we had known it, we would have been fighting a way earlier.

00:45:31.603 --> 00:45:35.232
But usually they don't tell you that, and to this day,

00:45:35.232 --> 00:45:37.735
they don't because they know that anybody that's

00:45:37.735 --> 00:45:44.241
intelligent, and you don't have to be educated to be intelligent, is going to fight them.

00:45:47.161 --> 00:45:49.913
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: That was Rev. Leon White who called to

00:45:49.913 --> 00:45:53.125
the New York office of the United Church of Christ.

00:45:53.125 --> 00:45:58.255
Asked if I would come down to help lead the protest movement.

00:45:58.255 --> 00:46:01.216
I said, Rev. White, I'd be glad to come down.

00:46:01.216 --> 00:46:05.220
But I said, The last thing I want to do is get arrested again in North Carolina,

00:46:05.220 --> 00:46:09.183
after spending most of the 1970s unjustly incarcerated.

00:46:09.183 --> 00:46:11.852
But I knew the dangers.

00:46:11.852 --> 00:46:14.354
To me, that was a risk worth taking.

00:46:14.354 --> 00:46:16.899
After the first people were arrested,

00:46:16.899 --> 00:46:21.695
I had arranged bail money to get them out of jail.

00:46:21.695 --> 00:46:25.699
I'm leading a caravan of cars from

00:46:25.699 --> 00:46:30.913
Coley Springs to the Warren County jail to bail everybody out.

00:46:30.913 --> 00:46:37.920
The state police come and asking me to give him the shot to pull over to pull over.

00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:39.963
I said, what's wrong, officer?

00:46:39.963 --> 00:46:43.133
He says, "You under arrest."

00:46:43.133 --> 00:46:45.803
I said, for what?

00:46:45.803 --> 00:46:47.513
He said, "Driving too slow."

00:46:47.513 --> 00:46:50.599
I said, why don't you just give me a ticket?

00:46:50.599 --> 00:46:54.311
He said, "No, we have we've been ordered to take you to jail."

00:46:54.311 --> 00:46:58.690
Obviously, it had nothing to do with me driving too slow.

00:46:58.690 --> 00:47:02.361
One, they prevented me from bailing the people out, two,

00:47:02.361 --> 00:47:05.781
it made national news that I'm arrested

00:47:05.781 --> 00:47:09.451
again in North Carolina now at the Warren County site.

00:47:09.451 --> 00:47:13.914
When other civil rights people heard that these arrests were taking place,

00:47:13.914 --> 00:47:16.041
some came that same day.

00:47:16.041 --> 00:47:18.418
For six weeks straight,

00:47:18.418 --> 00:47:21.797
over 500 people were arrested.

00:47:25.425 --> 00:47:28.303
Mary Somerville: Let me show you where the women were held,

00:47:28.303 --> 00:47:32.599
too, the famous Dollie Burwell.

00:47:37.688 --> 00:47:43.318
This is the cell where the women were held.

00:47:43.527 --> 00:47:46.738
The later it got when some of them,

00:47:46.738 --> 00:47:48.657
and especially the women,

00:47:48.657 --> 00:47:52.244
the ones that were chosen to stay,

00:47:52.244 --> 00:47:57.499
because they were, I would say uppity people, a lot of them were.

00:47:57.499 --> 00:48:05.799
I didn't know how they would take to a sheet that was torn or no pillow case on

00:48:05.799 --> 00:48:11.138
the pillow, plastic mattress and a plastic pillow.

00:48:11.138 --> 00:48:12.639
Overall, and the women,

00:48:12.639 --> 00:48:15.601
I never really did lock the cell door.

00:48:15.601 --> 00:48:20.439
I just let them roam around from cat walking in the cells.

00:48:20.439 --> 00:48:23.317
But I would go back and check on some of them,

00:48:23.317 --> 00:48:27.029
and they would just sitting talking like they were at home.

00:48:42.753 --> 00:48:48.300
Dollie Burwell: This was a day that I really hadn't planned to go to jail.

00:48:49.009 --> 00:48:54.056
Mrs. Lowry, who is right here.

00:48:54.056 --> 00:48:58.352
This is Jocelyn McKissick, Floyd McKissick's daughter.

00:48:58.352 --> 00:49:02.022
But we were all marching that morning,

00:49:02.022 --> 00:49:07.486
and the children at South Horne Elementary School had become really

00:49:07.486 --> 00:49:14.076
afraid because they were passing all these troopers with Billy Clubs.

00:49:14.076 --> 00:49:19.289
They really felt like it was something happened that would kill them right away,

00:49:19.289 --> 00:49:20.999
so they was afraid.

00:49:20.999 --> 00:49:25.379
Miss Lowry said that she was going to get arrested,

00:49:25.379 --> 00:49:31.593
and she wanted some women to go to get arrested with her and refused

00:49:31.593 --> 00:49:34.137
bond and stay in jail

00:49:34.137 --> 00:49:39.434
because she wanted to bring attention to the plight of the children.

00:49:39.434 --> 00:49:45.857
As you can see, all of us who went to jail was dressed up that day.

00:49:45.857 --> 00:49:51.113
We didn't have on our normal jeans and sweatshirts.

00:49:52.614 --> 00:49:54.950
This is me right here.

00:49:54.950 --> 00:49:58.078
That's one of the times that we went to jail,

00:49:58.078 --> 00:50:01.665
and we stayed in jail all night and till

00:50:01.665 --> 00:50:08.505
the next late afternoon before we accepted bond and got out of jail.

00:50:08.505 --> 00:50:41.872
PROTESTERS: [SINGING]

00:50:41.872 --> 00:50:45.333
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: Actually, that night I was in the Warren County jail,

00:50:45.333 --> 00:50:47.335
I began in my mind,

00:50:47.335 --> 00:50:50.255
and I wrote it out on some piece of paper.

00:50:50.255 --> 00:50:53.717
I coined the term environmental racism.

00:50:54.801 --> 00:51:01.558
Not because I was angry about what had just happened to me personally.

00:51:01.558 --> 00:51:05.103
But what I saw that day.

00:51:05.103 --> 00:51:08.148
There were other incidences of

00:51:08.148 --> 00:51:12.069
disproportionate exposure to these toxins in minority communities.

00:51:12.069 --> 00:51:18.075
The difference that Warren County made was that the protests led to a national exposure.

00:51:18.075 --> 00:51:21.912
Right after those demonstrations went on,

00:51:21.912 --> 00:51:24.164
those of us in the United Church of Christ Community Jail,

00:51:24.164 --> 00:51:25.540
we got hundreds of calls,

00:51:25.540 --> 00:51:28.293
literally from Louisiana and from Mississippi,

00:51:28.293 --> 00:51:30.253
from Alabama, all over the country,

00:51:30.253 --> 00:51:33.006
people are saying, "The same thing's going on in our community.

00:51:33.006 --> 00:51:35.383
Can we organize a similar protest?"

00:51:35.383 --> 00:51:39.930
That's what gave birth to the Environmental Justice Movement.

00:51:39.930 --> 00:51:43.934
Rep. Eva Clayton: We don't want the difficulties that come.

00:51:43.934 --> 00:51:47.562
I don't want to say we wanted the PCB.

00:51:47.562 --> 00:51:50.440
I don't want difficulties in life.

00:51:50.440 --> 00:51:58.990
I really don't. Because they come and I stand up to them in difficulties, I'm stronger.

00:51:58.990 --> 00:52:02.744
I'm a more determined person.

00:52:02.744 --> 00:52:06.206
I think as a result of

00:52:06.206 --> 00:52:16.049
being dumped upon you felt that you had to stand up as a community,

00:52:16.049 --> 00:52:19.553
and the resolve that comes from standing

00:52:19.553 --> 00:52:24.683
up makes you even more determined to do greater things.

00:52:24.683 --> 00:52:30.105
Rev. Willey Ramey III: Our fight was if you're going to put it here,

00:52:30.105 --> 00:52:33.775
just our dirt, nobody else's dirt.

00:52:33.775 --> 00:52:40.240
Then give us a promise that no other contaminant will be put in our county.

00:52:40.240 --> 00:52:41.992
The state promised that.

00:52:41.992 --> 00:52:44.911
So far, they have kept their promise.

00:52:44.911 --> 00:52:48.582
No, we don't look at it as being a defeat.

00:52:48.582 --> 00:52:53.128
We look at it as being a victory that God gave us because we didn't do it by ourselves.

00:52:53.128 --> 00:53:00.969
[MUSIC]

00:53:00.969 --> 00:54:12.123
PROTESTERS: [SINGING "We've Come This Far By Faith"]

00:54:12.123 --> 00:54:15.210
Dollie Burwell: You have a small thing that happened that other things grow

00:54:15.210 --> 00:54:18.713
out of it may not grow to be what you want,

00:54:18.713 --> 00:54:21.925
but you can see some benefits from it,

00:54:21.925 --> 00:54:25.387
and it makes all the difference in the world of how you

00:54:25.387 --> 00:54:29.391
continue to be engaged in the community.

00:54:29.391 --> 00:54:35.230
PROTESTERS: Fired up! / Ready to go!

00:54:35.230 --> 00:54:41.236
Fired up! / Ready to go!

00:54:41.236 --> 00:54:43.196
Angela Dunston: My natural inclination, of course,

00:54:43.196 --> 00:54:45.240
was to follow women like Dollie Burwell,

00:54:45.240 --> 00:54:49.119
who's now known as the mother of the Environmental Justice Movement.

00:54:49.119 --> 00:54:51.371
But my activism and

00:54:51.371 --> 00:54:58.628
my advocacy came from my beginnings or my humble beginnings with women like that,

00:54:58.628 --> 00:55:01.464
who were on the forefront of the social justice movement.

00:55:01.464 --> 00:55:02.882
Dollie Burwell: When I look out today,

00:55:02.882 --> 00:55:04.676
as I said this morning,

00:55:04.676 --> 00:55:09.014
I am looking forward to the day when they call me the grandmother.

00:55:09.014 --> 00:55:14.269
I want to be the grandmother.

00:55:14.269 --> 00:55:17.230
I want some of you young people to be the mother.

00:55:17.230 --> 00:55:21.318
I want to be the grandmother and the great grandmother.

00:55:21.318 --> 00:55:24.195
This just starts my heart so good.

00:55:24.195 --> 00:55:27.907
Again, I'm reminded that I am a daughter of hope.

00:55:27.907 --> 00:55:30.368
I may be angry, but I got courage.

00:55:30.368 --> 00:55:36.166
[APPLAUSE]

00:55:36.166 --> 00:55:38.918
S. Charmaine McKissick-Melton: She's a fast talking, little gregarious person.

00:55:38.918 --> 00:55:44.507
[LAUGHTER] She used to say that about me so.

00:55:44.507 --> 00:55:47.135
Dollie Burwell: I'm an organizer.

00:55:47.135 --> 00:55:55.268
I consider myself a community organizer and someone who cares about justice,

00:55:55.268 --> 00:55:56.978
whether that's social justice,

00:55:56.978 --> 00:56:00.398
whether that's economic justice,

00:56:00.398 --> 00:56:03.068
my story, my journey,

00:56:03.068 --> 00:56:05.278
makes me a community activist.

00:56:05.278 --> 00:56:08.365
S. Charmaine McKissick-Melton: Dolly has been a political person since I can remember.

00:56:08.365 --> 00:56:13.912
I believe she actually worked at the Soul City Foundation for a brief period of time.

00:56:16.581 --> 00:56:24.089
Rep. Eva Clayton: I think the combination of Soul City and PCB works together.

00:56:24.089 --> 00:56:30.762
The inspiration and the hope and determination to make something here,

00:56:30.762 --> 00:56:33.264
to do something yourself,

00:56:33.264 --> 00:56:38.353
and having to defend on this side against something

00:56:38.353 --> 00:56:44.651
that's encroaching on your right as a citizen to be free.

00:56:47.612 --> 00:56:50.824
The voter registration was intense.

00:56:50.824 --> 00:56:53.618
People started running.

00:56:53.618 --> 00:56:56.371
At that time, I ran for County Commission and

00:56:56.371 --> 00:57:00.542
won was elected chairman of the County Commission.

00:57:00.542 --> 00:57:03.837
But you had sheriffs being elected.

00:57:03.837 --> 00:57:06.714
You had registered deeds being elected.

00:57:06.714 --> 00:57:10.718
That was the first time a Black had been elected as sheriff,

00:57:10.718 --> 00:57:13.179
at least after reconstruction.

00:57:13.179 --> 00:57:14.889
When I got elected,

00:57:14.889 --> 00:57:21.062
I was the first to be elected since 1901 since George White.

00:57:21.062 --> 00:57:26.568
Further the first Afro American woman to ever be elected there.

00:57:26.568 --> 00:57:32.699
Further, the first woman to be elected in North Carolina.

00:57:32.699 --> 00:57:37.078
It was a very jubilant time.

00:57:37.078 --> 00:57:41.916
Probably people had some reservation,

00:57:41.916 --> 00:57:43.835
whether we could serve well.

00:57:43.835 --> 00:57:47.005
We weren't just serving because we were Black.

00:57:47.005 --> 00:57:50.633
We were serving because we wanted to improve this community.

00:57:50.633 --> 00:57:52.135
In fact, being engaged,

00:57:52.135 --> 00:57:54.429
having been engaged in Soul City,

00:57:54.429 --> 00:58:00.226
having been engaged at the state put me in a position to provide that leadership.

00:58:00.310 --> 00:58:03.771
Because I brought not only the will to do,

00:58:03.771 --> 00:58:07.108
but also brought some experience in doing it.

00:58:07.233 --> 00:58:11.196
Patrick Barnes: Congresswoman Clayton took it to DC,

00:58:11.196 --> 00:58:13.072
took her efforts there,

00:58:13.072 --> 00:58:15.575
and Dolly worked a local angle.

00:58:15.575 --> 00:58:22.832
It's like the standard in terms of how you engage with true community participation,

00:58:22.832 --> 00:58:25.084
true community advocacy, having

00:58:25.084 --> 00:58:30.173
the stakeholders and the responsible parties work together.

00:58:30.173 --> 00:58:32.300
It checks all the boxes.

00:58:32.300 --> 00:58:36.763
It really does. Now where do we go from here?

00:58:36.763 --> 00:58:43.520
Floyd Mckissick Jr.: At some point,

00:58:43.520 --> 00:58:46.356
it's more than just about community organizing.

00:58:46.356 --> 00:58:50.068
At some point, it's more about just articulating policy.

00:58:50.068 --> 00:58:52.904
At some point, it becomes a matter of engagement

00:58:52.904 --> 00:58:55.865
and taking it to the next level where you put yourself there,

00:58:55.865 --> 00:58:58.910
not just complain to the decision makers and the policymakers,

00:58:58.910 --> 00:59:01.663
you become one of them so you can advance

00:59:01.663 --> 00:59:06.626
your position and advance the type of progressive policies that you think are necessary,

00:59:06.626 --> 00:59:09.837
not just for the generation that we're serving today,

00:59:09.837 --> 00:59:11.714
but for the generation that will follow us,

00:59:11.714 --> 00:59:16.094
for our children and for our grandchildren to make Warren County,

00:59:16.094 --> 00:59:18.304
the state of North Carolina a better place.

00:59:18.304 --> 00:59:50.712
[MUSIC]

00:59:50.712 --> 00:59:53.590
Ken Ferruccio: The state decided to,

00:59:53.590 --> 00:59:57.510
I guess, they're going to pump

00:59:57.510 --> 00:59:59.137
some water out of the landfill because they

00:59:59.137 --> 01:00:00.847
didn't want the head to build up in the landfill.

01:00:00.847 --> 01:00:04.350
This is 1983. The friends

01:00:04.350 --> 01:00:08.771
from Washington were visiting us and they were into environmental concerns.

01:00:08.771 --> 01:00:12.400
They said, Well, Ken, we can't let them pump.

01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:16.070
What are you going to do? We'll go to occupy the site.

01:00:16.112 --> 01:00:19.032
Deborah Ferruccio: Well, what happened afterwards was this state of

01:00:19.032 --> 01:00:24.120
the art landfill that was supposed to be a Cadillac filled up with water,

01:00:24.120 --> 01:00:26.706
and it was a disaster from the beginning.

01:00:26.706 --> 01:00:30.960
Ken decided to go down there and tell the state, No,

01:00:30.960 --> 01:00:33.087
you can't just get away,

01:00:33.087 --> 01:00:39.302
building a landfill, letting it fail and pumping the container water into the creek.

01:00:39.302 --> 01:00:43.556
He got arrested for felonious Larceny for taking the pump from them,

01:00:43.556 --> 01:00:47.644
and he became very dramatic after 19 days of fasting.

01:00:47.644 --> 01:00:49.646
They had to carry him into the jail.

01:00:49.646 --> 01:00:51.397
He wouldn't speak to the judge.

01:00:51.397 --> 01:00:54.233
The judge was a little annoyed, but, by then,

01:00:54.233 --> 01:00:58.863
he was flighty and not thinking, he didn't want to speak.

01:00:58.863 --> 01:00:59.405
Ken Ferruccio: No that's not true.

01:00:59.405 --> 01:01:01.366
Deborah Ferruccio: I'm kidding. I'm saying he hadn't

01:01:01.366 --> 01:01:03.701
eaten in 19 days. You weren't flighty. [OVERLAPPING]

01:01:03.701 --> 01:01:05.745
I wasn't going cooperate with

01:01:05.745 --> 01:01:09.582
Ken Ferruccio: the whole darn system and then they perpetuate it.

01:01:09.582 --> 01:01:13.378
Deborah Ferruccio: That's what I meant, but he was just not going to deal with him.

01:01:13.378 --> 01:01:16.923
He looks like he's almost, comatose.

01:01:16.923 --> 01:01:17.965
That's what the judge said.

01:01:17.965 --> 01:01:19.342
Is your client comatose?

01:01:19.342 --> 01:01:21.135
Ken Ferruccio: They came over and they picked up my chair,

01:01:21.135 --> 01:01:23.388
and they carried over and put it in front of the judge.

01:01:23.388 --> 01:01:26.015
I just sat there. I wouldn't do anything.

01:01:26.015 --> 01:01:28.768
The judge looked at Floyd McKissick.

01:01:28.768 --> 01:01:33.272
My two civil rights lawyers Floyd McKissick and Frank Pelins.

01:01:33.272 --> 01:01:37.402
The judge looks at Mr. McKissick and he says,

01:01:37.402 --> 01:01:41.989
Attorney McKissick is your client comatose?

01:01:43.449 --> 01:01:46.869
Floyd said, I don't want to get into this, your lawyer?

01:01:46.869 --> 01:01:48.538
I don't want to deal with this.

01:01:48.538 --> 01:01:50.748
The judge says, Take him back to jail.

01:01:50.748 --> 01:01:52.458
So back I go.

01:01:52.458 --> 01:01:54.293
About 19 days later,

01:01:54.293 --> 01:01:55.378
I was still fasting.

01:01:55.378 --> 01:02:01.008
[MUSIC]

01:02:01.008 --> 01:02:05.680
Mary Somerville: Reverend Leon White and another local activist,

01:02:05.680 --> 01:02:08.683
Ken Ferruccio, they were the last.

01:02:08.683 --> 01:02:13.563
They stayed in fast at helps after everybody else was gone.

01:02:14.313 --> 01:02:18.526
I enjoyed them because at that time,

01:02:18.526 --> 01:02:22.029
I had just got my ministry license and everything.

01:02:22.029 --> 01:02:24.490
Reverend White helped me a lot.

01:02:24.490 --> 01:02:26.659
We would have Bible study,

01:02:26.659 --> 01:02:29.203
get me a chair and pull up aside the cell,

01:02:29.203 --> 01:02:32.123
and we'd just have a good time.

01:02:32.749 --> 01:02:34.959
Rev. William Kearney: I see Anna's here,

01:02:34.959 --> 01:02:37.003
Wayne's here, Jenny's here,

01:02:37.003 --> 01:02:42.759
Sherry, Mark. What's next?

01:02:42.759 --> 01:02:46.387
We're going to have everybody from the community members

01:02:46.387 --> 01:02:50.099
who are affected by the dumping all the way up to policymakers.

01:02:50.099 --> 01:02:55.104
It'd be a great opportunity for us to begin to look moving forward.

01:03:01.861 --> 01:03:07.700
Remembering the past and revisiting our past as we move forward.

01:03:07.700 --> 01:03:13.080
This will be passed on to Cameron and

01:03:13.080 --> 01:03:15.041
all the young folk who represent

01:03:15.041 --> 01:03:19.253
the young generation of activists who will continue to work.

01:03:19.253 --> 01:03:22.173
It's going to be a real spiritual significance of it.

01:03:22.173 --> 01:03:24.759
Definitely, we want our young folk to be

01:03:24.759 --> 01:03:29.388
represented as one thing because they need to have pride in their county.

01:03:29.388 --> 01:03:34.352
A lot of them don't see what happened here and they think of us as being weak.

01:03:34.352 --> 01:03:38.356
This is, again, to keep us centered and

01:03:38.356 --> 01:03:42.944
lifting up our young folk lifting up us to really own this story.

01:03:42.944 --> 01:03:47.698
Those are the updates and now I can exhale.

01:03:47.698 --> 01:03:51.118
It's been a nice busy,

01:03:51.118 --> 01:03:53.329
but I have to attribute it all to God.

01:03:53.329 --> 01:03:56.874
I thank God for allowing me to do this work and sending me

01:03:56.874 --> 01:04:02.421
such a dynamic team of folk to be a part of this bigger work.

01:04:10.346 --> 01:04:16.978
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: In 1986, I convinced the United Church of Christ to put up $100,000.

01:04:16.978 --> 01:04:20.356
We hired a statistician, 'cause look,

01:04:20.356 --> 01:04:26.946
I knew doing this research was going to set off some alarms.

01:04:26.946 --> 01:04:29.866
I wanted to make sure that we got

01:04:29.866 --> 01:04:37.623
a renowned statistical research company to help us not just crunch the numbers,

01:04:37.623 --> 01:04:39.333
but it's the question.

01:04:39.333 --> 01:04:41.711
No one had ever asked a question before.

01:04:41.711 --> 01:04:44.797
Is there a correlation between

01:04:44.797 --> 01:04:50.469
the racial composition of the community and the location of these toxic waste facilities?

01:04:50.469 --> 01:04:52.722
Prior to us doing this study,

01:04:52.722 --> 01:04:53.764
most people would have told you,

01:04:53.764 --> 01:04:57.101
even sociologists would have said at least they would have asserted,

01:04:57.101 --> 01:04:59.645
even without data, that it was poverty,

01:04:59.645 --> 01:05:01.606
poor people get dumped on.

01:05:01.606 --> 01:05:05.234
That is true. But when we did the study,

01:05:05.234 --> 01:05:08.237
it showed that poverty was not

01:05:08.237 --> 01:05:15.661
the leading social indicator that determined how these places were selected.

01:05:15.661 --> 01:05:17.371
Race was the Number 1 factor.

01:05:17.371 --> 01:05:19.332
It was African American exposure.

01:05:19.332 --> 01:05:21.042
It was Latino exposure.

01:05:21.042 --> 01:05:24.462
It was Asian American, Pacific Island exposure.

01:05:24.462 --> 01:05:25.755
It was Native American exposure.

01:05:25.755 --> 01:05:28.049
It was also white exposure.

01:05:28.424 --> 01:05:32.386
It became a landmark publication.

01:05:32.553 --> 01:05:35.389
Our study was so tight.

01:05:35.389 --> 01:05:37.558
And so, from that point on,

01:05:37.558 --> 01:05:43.230
it was even used by the EPA to help develop environmental policy.

01:05:43.230 --> 01:05:47.610
Patrick Barnes: There are not that many Black environmental geologists,

01:05:47.610 --> 01:05:51.906
and a lot of

01:05:51.906 --> 01:05:59.664
the communities that have environmental problems are minority communities.

01:05:59.664 --> 01:06:07.546
I made a determination at that point in time that I would seek out these communities,

01:06:07.546 --> 01:06:11.634
and I would try to work to help bring about some solutions and enable

01:06:11.634 --> 01:06:17.974
them to see someone that looks like them working for them.

01:06:17.974 --> 01:06:21.519
I was paid by the state,

01:06:21.519 --> 01:06:23.813
but working for the community,

01:06:23.896 --> 01:06:29.110
if you could say that, because it seems almost like it's a conflict, in a way.

01:06:31.612 --> 01:06:34.865
Supposedly had a dry tomb landfill.

01:06:34.865 --> 01:06:38.077
It was lined on the bottom, lined on the top.

01:06:38.077 --> 01:06:41.747
No water was supposed to get in. Or out.

01:06:41.747 --> 01:06:43.958
Of course, we know liners fail.

01:06:43.958 --> 01:06:45.793
When you say, "Is it typical? " Yes,

01:06:45.793 --> 01:06:47.128
it's actually very typical,

01:06:47.128 --> 01:06:51.841
very predictable that it would fail eventually.

01:06:51.841 --> 01:06:55.678
There was water in the landfill,

01:06:55.678 --> 01:06:59.015
and they knew that at some point.

01:06:59.015 --> 01:07:04.353
They indicated that that was water that was entrapped with the soil when it was placed,

01:07:04.353 --> 01:07:07.231
and there's no new water in the landfill.

01:07:07.231 --> 01:07:11.193
But again, by looking at the water levels over time,

01:07:11.193 --> 01:07:15.740
you saw that it had the seasonal cyclical fluctuations

01:07:15.740 --> 01:07:19.869
which indicated that the water was coming in and going out seasonally.

01:07:19.869 --> 01:07:25.624
It was in communication with the environment outside of the landfill.

01:07:25.624 --> 01:07:29.170
It wasn't a separate pattern in the landfill that it was out.

01:07:29.170 --> 01:07:30.463
It was very similar.

01:07:30.463 --> 01:07:35.926
With that, the motivation went to,

01:07:35.926 --> 01:07:37.261
"Well, let's get this water out.

01:07:37.261 --> 01:07:38.846
We've got to pump it out,

01:07:38.846 --> 01:07:41.307
haul it off for disposal".

01:07:41.307 --> 01:07:43.517
The community said, "No,

01:07:43.517 --> 01:07:46.937
we don't want to dump on another community.

01:07:46.937 --> 01:07:51.025
The water has to stay in the landfill until it's treated and detoxified".

01:07:51.025 --> 01:07:54.945
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis: One of the heroic things that the Warren County residents said,

01:07:54.945 --> 01:07:57.364
"If you take this out of Warren County,

01:07:57.364 --> 01:07:59.116
don't take it to Alabama.

01:07:59.116 --> 01:08:01.202
Don't take it to Mississippi.

01:08:01.202 --> 01:08:10.086
That's not fair". They understood profoundly all communities without regard to race,

01:08:10.086 --> 01:08:13.089
without regard to social, economic circumstances,

01:08:13.089 --> 01:08:16.884
no community should be exposed to these toxins.

01:08:16.884 --> 01:08:18.344
Deborah Ferruccio: We didn't make that choice.

01:08:18.344 --> 01:08:23.808
We made a tough choice to keep it where it was and force the governor to detoxify it,

01:08:23.808 --> 01:08:26.310
which is something he promised us.

01:08:26.310 --> 01:08:30.147
Ken Ferruccio: You cannot factor out the continuity of Jim Hunt.

01:08:30.147 --> 01:08:34.276
He's there in our research phase, '78 - '82.

01:08:34.276 --> 01:08:38.114
He's there again in our resistance phase,

01:08:38.114 --> 01:08:41.242
1982, again in 1983.

01:08:41.242 --> 01:08:46.080
Without the history, I think we would have been powerless.

01:08:46.080 --> 01:08:47.915
It probably never would have happened,

01:08:47.915 --> 01:08:51.669
'cause it all goes back to Hunt's promise in 1982,

01:08:51.669 --> 01:08:54.547
the warn record, that given technical feasibility,

01:08:54.547 --> 01:08:56.090
we will detoxify this site.

01:08:56.090 --> 01:08:57.591
Deborah Ferruccio: The other thing he did was say,

01:08:57.591 --> 01:08:59.301
"This will only be for these PCBs,

01:08:59.301 --> 01:09:02.471
it will never be open for anything else ever".

01:09:05.141 --> 01:09:08.519
Ken Ferruccio: Well, EPA came up with base catalyzed decomposition,

01:09:08.519 --> 01:09:11.564
and we went through the RP and all of that kind of stuff you had to go through.

01:09:11.564 --> 01:09:15.985
Finally, it was that EPA contribution or invention

01:09:15.985 --> 01:09:21.323
or whatever that they used to detoxify the site.

01:09:21.782 --> 01:09:24.952
Patrick Barnes: We helped pick the solution,

01:09:24.952 --> 01:09:26.871
do the evaluations of the site,

01:09:26.871 --> 01:09:32.710
which the site hadn't been fully evaluated ever since it was installed those 15 years.

01:09:32.710 --> 01:09:38.048
We installed numerous monitoring wells and collected samples, soil,

01:09:38.048 --> 01:09:44.430
groundwater, air around the facility during that phase prior to the detoxification.

01:09:48.184 --> 01:09:56.650
I have not been involved technically with the project since 2003.

01:09:56.650 --> 01:10:03.991
I'm not even sure if they're still collecting samples or anything like that.

01:10:03.991 --> 01:10:07.620
Detection levels have become better.

01:10:07.620 --> 01:10:11.790
Well, there are new contaminants of concern

01:10:11.790 --> 01:10:16.795
that we've become aware of in

01:10:16.795 --> 01:10:23.177
the environment and that we've never tested for before.

01:10:23.177 --> 01:10:31.685
Shauna Williams: One of the other great tragedies of the dumping is the fact that

01:10:31.685 --> 01:10:39.944
there's been no concerted health study on the effects of that stuff in the community.

01:10:39.944 --> 01:10:43.155
Anecdotally, we know of several.

01:10:43.155 --> 01:10:48.118
They remembered people who had all kinds of illnesses that came up after the dumping.

01:10:48.118 --> 01:10:50.204
Angela Dunston: As a result of the contaminations,

01:10:50.204 --> 01:10:51.872
the corporations, the funding,

01:10:51.872 --> 01:10:54.416
the opportunities that would have come with that,

01:10:54.416 --> 01:10:58.379
dried up and no longer existed because we did have

01:10:58.379 --> 01:11:04.843
almost that stain of the least of these or an area that you don't want to touch.

01:11:04.843 --> 01:11:09.265
If there was anything I feel like government could have done for us is,

01:11:09.265 --> 01:11:14.186
let's make sure that these people who we have dumped on are given

01:11:14.186 --> 01:11:19.358
access to at least a quality hospital,

01:11:19.358 --> 01:11:21.819
clinics, and other resources,

01:11:21.819 --> 01:11:26.240
should they ever contract disease,

01:11:26.240 --> 01:11:27.825
cancer, that sort of thing.

01:11:27.825 --> 01:11:29.243
As we well know,

01:11:29.243 --> 01:11:33.747
that is definitely what did not happen in my hometown.

01:11:34.915 --> 01:11:40.921
Prof. Lameshia Whittington: It is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.

01:11:40.921 --> 01:11:42.923
As this forward march proceeds,

01:11:42.923 --> 01:11:45.592
the knowledge of the past must never be forgotten.

01:11:45.592 --> 01:11:49.596
Sankofa is a word that embodies what we are doing here today.

01:11:49.596 --> 01:11:52.891
The environmental justice movement will continue on.

01:11:52.891 --> 01:11:54.518
We know this to be true.

01:11:54.518 --> 01:11:57.021
We must embody the term Sankofa,

01:11:57.021 --> 01:11:59.982
remembering that in order to make positive progress,

01:11:59.982 --> 01:12:05.779
there must be continued movement forward and also new learning as time passes.

01:12:09.366 --> 01:12:12.244
Rev. William Kearney: We talked about passing the torch,

01:12:12.244 --> 01:12:15.456
but torch to me means you're running forward.

01:12:15.456 --> 01:12:18.584
You're all concerned about getting there.

01:12:18.584 --> 01:12:25.507
We find that Sankofa bird represents what we want.

01:12:25.507 --> 01:12:30.262
Sometimes the process of equity is slow,

01:12:30.262 --> 01:12:34.183
and you have to go back and visit the past.

01:12:34.183 --> 01:12:37.102
To this new generation of activists,

01:12:37.102 --> 01:12:39.938
I'd love all our students to stand up.

01:12:39.938 --> 01:12:43.734
Warren County students, college students.

01:12:43.734 --> 01:12:46.653
You pass it to the younger generation.

01:12:46.653 --> 01:12:48.655
We got to acknowledge you.

01:12:48.655 --> 01:12:50.074
We're passing work.

01:12:50.074 --> 01:12:55.454
[APPLAUSE] We're so glad you're here.

01:12:55.454 --> 01:13:00.334
Cameron Oglesby: I've gotten a lot of questions lately about why environmental justice.

01:13:00.334 --> 01:13:01.668
Why am I doing this?

01:13:01.668 --> 01:13:04.338
I'm like, "Why is that a question?"

01:13:04.338 --> 01:13:06.131
This is necessary.

01:13:06.131 --> 01:13:07.633
This isn't optional.

01:13:07.633 --> 01:13:10.636
That's one thing I want to make sure is conveyed in this.

01:13:10.636 --> 01:13:12.471
I'm doing this work,

01:13:12.471 --> 01:13:17.184
not because of some sort of sense of self, necessarily.

01:13:17.184 --> 01:13:21.230
I obviously have my own personal connections to the movement, to nature.

01:13:21.230 --> 01:13:25.359
The reason that I am here and that I am trying hard and that I'm putting

01:13:25.359 --> 01:13:31.490
everything I have into this is because it's mandatory.

01:13:32.408 --> 01:13:35.619
William Kearney: I think there's a lot more work to be done.

01:13:35.619 --> 01:13:38.872
That's something else. I say that we're all environmentalists.

01:13:38.872 --> 01:13:41.750
Our choices, or lack of,

01:13:41.750 --> 01:13:43.752
has an impact on our environment.

01:13:43.752 --> 01:13:48.257
What we purchase and what we use has an impact on our environment.

01:13:48.257 --> 01:13:50.634
We might look at big oil industry and what

01:13:50.634 --> 01:13:53.011
they might do as far as polluting the environment,

01:13:53.011 --> 01:13:56.390
but we also look at our own individual behaviors.

01:13:56.390 --> 01:14:02.396
Definitely, education, giving people from the faith perspective,

01:14:02.396 --> 01:14:08.861
permission to be able to engage in environment for things and policies.

01:14:08.861 --> 01:14:11.029
William Barber III: Even within the belly,

01:14:11.029 --> 01:14:12.906
the ethos of the civil rights movement,

01:14:12.906 --> 01:14:17.536
there was this emerging analysis that connected what was going on,

01:14:17.536 --> 01:14:21.999
the fight for communities and disadvantaged and impacted communities on the ground,

01:14:21.999 --> 01:14:26.587
the fight for civil rights to also this growing awareness and

01:14:26.587 --> 01:14:31.133
the seeds in many ways that were planted for this fight for environmental justice.

01:14:31.133 --> 01:14:36.722
That's important to articulate that Warren County cannot be overstated,

01:14:36.722 --> 01:14:38.432
but there were other moments.

01:14:38.432 --> 01:14:39.725
James Farmer Jr.,

01:14:39.725 --> 01:14:42.478
who was the founder of the Congress on Racial Equality,

01:14:42.478 --> 01:14:45.230
said at the height of the civil rights movement that

01:14:45.230 --> 01:14:49.485
whatever we hope to accomplish in the fight for civil rights,

01:14:49.485 --> 01:14:52.029
if we do not save the environment,

01:14:52.029 --> 01:14:56.450
would be for nothing because we would all know the brotherhood of extinction.

01:14:56.450 --> 01:14:58.577
Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: I'm encouraged, because I believe that

01:14:58.577 --> 01:15:02.372
the young activists of today are learning from the past.

01:15:02.372 --> 01:15:05.209
They're not necessarily inclined to repeat the past.

01:15:05.209 --> 01:15:09.171
I think we have a generation of social scientists,

01:15:09.171 --> 01:15:12.382
environmental scientists, climate justice scientists.

01:15:12.382 --> 01:15:16.637
We have a generation of thinkers, public policymakers.

01:15:16.637 --> 01:15:21.183
I want some of these young people to run for office, get elected.

01:15:21.183 --> 01:15:24.102
A lot of the climate judgment is led by young people.

01:15:24.102 --> 01:15:28.190
I believe that there's going to be a convergence between

01:15:28.190 --> 01:15:30.317
the climate justice movement and

01:15:30.317 --> 01:15:33.820
the environmental justice movement into one justice movement.

01:15:33.820 --> 01:15:38.075
Patrick Barnes: So much attention is being paid on environmental justice issues,

01:15:38.075 --> 01:15:39.660
and that's great and funded.

01:15:39.660 --> 01:15:43.997
Dollars are there. But what are the dollars for exactly?

01:15:43.997 --> 01:15:46.291
Does the community control the dollars?

01:15:46.291 --> 01:15:48.627
Those are the questions.

01:15:49.920 --> 01:15:53.173
Are the dollars there for

01:15:53.173 --> 01:15:57.803
multinational corporations to come in and clean up these communities,

01:15:57.803 --> 01:16:00.556
or are the dollars there for communities to

01:16:00.556 --> 01:16:04.268
engage with corporations and help clean up their own communities?

01:16:04.268 --> 01:16:05.394
William Barber III: When you think about

01:16:05.394 --> 01:16:08.564
the environmental justice movement in the United States,

01:16:08.564 --> 01:16:12.401
it serves as the foundational framework

01:16:12.401 --> 01:16:16.697
from where we get concepts now of climate justice that looks

01:16:16.697 --> 01:16:20.117
at disproportionate impacts and the legacy of

01:16:20.117 --> 01:16:26.498
our society's dependence on the fossil fuel infrastructure and why that multiplies on,

01:16:26.498 --> 01:16:29.084
in many cases, communities that would be the

01:16:29.084 --> 01:16:33.755
same that have fought environmental justice issues like legacy pollution,

01:16:33.755 --> 01:16:36.258
like the fight for clean air,

01:16:36.258 --> 01:16:38.218
clean water, just access to that.

01:16:38.218 --> 01:16:45.517
It is the foundational framework on which we build concepts like energy justice,

01:16:45.517 --> 01:16:49.187
where we see some of the most egregious energy burdens,

01:16:49.187 --> 01:16:54.651
with people spending up to one third of their disposable income in many cases,

01:16:54.651 --> 01:16:56.445
just trying to heat or cool their homes.

01:16:56.445 --> 01:16:58.864
Catherine Flowers: Their power bills are very high.

01:16:58.864 --> 01:17:01.617
They only have a certain amount of money,

01:17:01.617 --> 01:17:05.829
and they're living in a trailer because that's all they can get.

01:17:05.829 --> 01:17:09.625
That's part of that structural inequity that exists,

01:17:09.625 --> 01:17:11.668
and they are dealing with climate issues.

01:17:11.668 --> 01:17:14.004
Or if you're in Jackson, Mississippi,

01:17:14.004 --> 01:17:17.257
and you can't drink your water or take a bath in it,

01:17:17.257 --> 01:17:18.800
that's a climate issue.

01:17:18.800 --> 01:17:23.305
It's also a structural racism issue because I'm sure we will look at

01:17:23.305 --> 01:17:25.974
the investments that have gone into Jackson since

01:17:25.974 --> 01:17:29.561
Jackson's demographics have changed; you got browner.

01:17:29.561 --> 01:17:33.565
I think that we'll see a correlation between that and the failure of that system.

01:17:33.565 --> 01:17:38.236
Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.: The climate justice movement evolves a lot

01:17:38.236 --> 01:17:43.200
of earning and yearning for social justice internationally.

01:17:43.200 --> 01:17:47.454
I refer to Cameron Ogles as a young G. I'm an old G,

01:17:47.454 --> 01:17:53.919
and I have a responsibility to make sure that she has all the tools that she needs,

01:17:53.919 --> 01:17:55.796
not only to make a difference,

01:17:55.796 --> 01:17:58.882
but to open wider this journey of

01:17:58.882 --> 01:18:03.220
the movement for freedom and justice and equality for all of humanity.

01:18:03.220 --> 01:18:04.971
Cameron Oglesby: We, the young people,

01:18:04.971 --> 01:18:09.226
are honored to accept the work and the present and future labor of

01:18:09.226 --> 01:18:11.895
this movement in leading it forward but also

01:18:11.895 --> 01:18:15.065
never forgetting the people and the actions that got us here,

01:18:15.065 --> 01:18:17.734
but we accept this work with the hope that

01:18:17.734 --> 01:18:21.905
the movement elders will continue to hold space with us will educate us,

01:18:21.905 --> 01:18:24.199
those too young to have witnessed some of

01:18:24.199 --> 01:18:27.369
the fundamental moments in the movement's history.

01:18:27.369 --> 01:18:30.247
Let's keep each other accountable and continue

01:18:30.247 --> 01:18:32.582
to build great things together. Thank you.

01:18:32.582 --> 01:18:37.546
[APPLAUSE]

01:18:37.546 --> 01:18:39.423
Rev. William Kearney: [inaudible] To God be the glory.

01:18:39.423 --> 01:18:43.552
Cameron Oglesby: I think what most resonates with me about

01:18:43.552 --> 01:18:47.013
the PCB protests in 1982 was that community element.

01:18:47.013 --> 01:18:51.351
I know it's very basic, but my work,

01:18:51.351 --> 01:18:53.812
my intention as an environmental justice advocate,

01:18:53.812 --> 01:18:56.648
as a journalist, and now as a consultant,

01:18:56.648 --> 01:18:58.817
is to ensure that this sense of

01:18:58.817 --> 01:19:02.529
community that comes out of environmental justice communities,

01:19:02.529 --> 01:19:08.493
that comes out of people coming together in solidarity to fight environmental hazards,

01:19:08.493 --> 01:19:11.037
injustices, pollution, what have you,

01:19:11.037 --> 01:19:15.041
that that is coming through in the storytelling,

01:19:15.041 --> 01:19:17.002
that it's coming through in the policy making,

01:19:17.002 --> 01:19:20.464
that it is a central through line, I suppose,

01:19:20.464 --> 01:19:25.385
in the work that's taking place to make our world a better place.

01:19:25.385 --> 01:19:39.441
[BACKGROUND]

01:19:39.441 --> 01:19:42.068
Consherto Williams: I live less than a mile and a half.

01:19:42.068 --> 01:19:45.447
Not down this road, but the fork, the road forks off,

01:19:45.447 --> 01:19:48.283
the PCB dump is on the fork if you keep straight.

01:19:48.283 --> 01:19:50.452
I'm like a mile and a half down that road.

01:19:50.452 --> 01:19:53.413
This was personal to me.

01:19:53.413 --> 01:19:55.832
Cameron Oglesby: Knowing that they were my age,

01:19:55.832 --> 01:19:59.085
that they were young people doing this work,

01:19:59.085 --> 01:20:03.715
starting things from the ground up and have been

01:20:03.715 --> 01:20:08.428
able to reach this point in their lives as icons and as legends, it's inspiring.

01:20:08.428 --> 01:20:10.222
It makes me want to work with them further.

01:20:10.222 --> 01:20:12.557
I don't know that I'm ever going to see that in myself.

01:20:12.557 --> 01:20:15.936
I don't know that they saw that in themselves when they were young and doing this work.

01:20:15.936 --> 01:20:17.479
They were just doing the best they could.

01:20:17.479 --> 01:20:18.980
That's all that I can do.

01:20:18.980 --> 01:20:24.277
I can do the best that I can and know that there are people before me that have laid

01:20:24.277 --> 01:20:26.822
a foundation for me to do the work

01:20:26.822 --> 01:20:30.617
intentionally and with perhaps greater impact moving forward.

01:20:30.617 --> 01:22:02.959
[MUSIC]

01:22:02.959 --> 01:22:06.963
FEMALE_4: None whatsoever. No PCB.