Living Downstream Visits Birthplace of Environmental Justice

This story comes from Warren County, North Carolina.  In the
early 1980s, Warren County became a flash point in the fight for
something that didn’t have a commonly used name at the time:
environmental justice. 


These days, members of this small, “majority-minority” community
are taking new approaches to raising environmental
consciousness. 


Jereann King Johnson and Joe O’Connell have teamed up to tell the
story of local environmentalism in the present day. 


Jereann has been involved in social justice work in the county
since the 1970s.  She knows Warren County intimately. Joe,
on the other hand, was drawn to this story through his work as a
folklorist.  He lives in Durham, about an hours drive to the
south of where our story takes place.


Learn more about PCBs and global environmental justice
conflicts. 


(Image: Anti-PCB demonstration 1982. Credit: Mac Shaffer)


Slideshow of protests against PCB site in Warren County,
photographer Mac Shaffer:


PCB March September 15, 1982, photos by Matt Cooper, Jr.


Click the icon below to listen.