Forty years ago, a predominantly Black community’s attempt to prevent the dumping of PCB in a local landfill received largely cursory media attention. At the time, no one referred to the 1982 demonstrations as “the birthplace of the environmental justice movement.”
But that is what it became.
The protests failed to halt depositing PCB in a landfill in Warren County, but the protesters coalesced into a movement. Historians now view the North Carolina protest Jenny photographed as a turning point and a seminal event in U.S. history.
Background and additional stories on the protest can be found here in chronological order: