Ghost towns
As the southern Tour bus left Anniston, Alabama on Wednesday night, one similarity of all the communities we visited so far came to mind: ghost towns. Every city tour narrative on this route thus far has included a phrase like, “And on your left, that weeded area used to be a neighborhood of 50 or more homes….” Destroyed, abandoned homes or block after vacant city block — areas that used to be thriving neighborhoods but have surrendered to toxic contamination. The industry has virtually erased so many communities with its pollution; yet the invisible poisons still exist in the bodies of former residents, in the water, in the soil.
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Reverend Henry Sterling, Anniston resident and leader with the Alabama Southern Christian Leadership Conference, spoke with us about Monsanto’s decades of dumping PCBs into west Anniston communities. He shared that in a few short weeks, he led funeral services for five women, all under 32 years old and including his neice, who died from cancer. “These young people should be in the prime of their lives,” he said, “but instead they are being destroyed by toxic contamination.” He added, “What bothers me about the industry is not their ignorance, but their arrogance. They knew perfectly well what the effects were, but they carried on their poisoning with no regard for the people.”
In Anniston I am reminded that when the Tour was first conceived, organizers compared the goals of the Tour and that of the Freedom Rides. Here, as in so many other southern towns, the history of the civil rights movement and that of the struggle against environmental racism are intertwined. As we drove on the “other side of the tracks” from downtown Anniston to the historic African-American west Anniston, we passed the site of the Greyhound bus station where Freedom Riders were beaten. The site of the infamous bus burning is only minutes away from the Monsanto (now Solutia) facility and beyond that, the Army’s chemical weapons incinerator. In between the two, more ghost-neighborhoods; Henry and Rufus remind us that the residents who remain are either aware of the dangers but can’t leave, or perhaps are just resigned to pollution and illness as a way of life. The company’s legal settlement funds have helped some into a better life, but for others it is not enough and in any case, money doesn’t stop the spread of cancer.
Where is the hope? As Rufus Kinney said, there’s hope when any number of us — even a few — get together to share stories and ideas, talk about the solutions, and take action, even if it’s standing outside the Depot gate for a few minutes, reminding the Army that we’re still watching. Remembering the lives of the many who died too young, we carry forward the hope that our actions today will help ensure a safer, healthier future for our children and future generations.
-Elizabeth Crowe
(Apologies to Christine Bennett, with MEAN in Mossville, who dictated a wonderful entry for this day only to have it erased when we lost the wireless signal on the bus. Sorry Christine!)