Research Catalog

Baptized in PCBs : race, pollution, and justice in an all-American town

Title
Baptized in PCBs : race, pollution, and justice in an all-American town / Ellen Griffith Spears.
Author
Spears, Ellen Griffith.
Publication
Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2014]
Supplementary Content
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TextUse in library JBF 17-53Schwarzman Building - General Research Room 315

Details

Description
xxiv, 440 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm.
Summary
"In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Alabama, began a legal fight against the agrochemical company Monsanto over the dumping of PCBs in the city's historically African American and white working-class west side. Simultaneously, Anniston environmentalists sought to safely eliminate chemical weaponry that had been secretly stockpiled near the city during the Cold War. In this probing work, Ellen Griffith Spears offers a compelling narrative of Anniston's battles for environmental justice, exposing how systemic racial and class inequalities reinforced during the Jim Crow era played out in these intense contemporary social movements. Spears focuses attention on key figures who shaped Anniston--from Monsanto's founders, to white and African American activists, to the ordinary Anniston residents whose lives and health were deeply affected by the town's military-industrial history and the legacy of racism. Situating the personal struggles and triumphs of Anniston residents within a larger national story of regulatory regimes and legal strategies that have affected toxic towns across America, Spears unflinchingly explores the causes and implications of environmental inequalities, showing how civil rights movement activism undergirded Anniston's campaigns for redemption and justice. "--
Series Statement
New directions in Southern studies
Subject
  • Monsanto Company > History
  • Polychlorinated biphenyls > Environmental aspects > Alabama > Anniston
  • Polychlorinated biphenyls > Health aspects > Alabama > Anniston
  • Environmental justice > Alabama > Anniston
  • Environmental health > Alabama > Anniston
  • African Americans > Health and hygiene > Alabama > Anniston
  • Working class > Health and hygiene > Alabama > Anniston
  • NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection
  • HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)
  • Anniston (Ala.) > Environmental conditions
  • Anniston (Ala.) > Race relations
  • Anniston (Ala.) > Social conditions
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-409) and index.
Contents
Abbreviations -- Introduction: Toxic Knowledge -- The Model City : A Romance of the New South -- The War for Chemical Supremacy -- Monsanto's Move "Down South" -- A Technological High Command -- War in a Time of Peace -- The Nature of the Poison -- The Death of Aroclors -- Challenging the Green Dragon -- Contaminated Bodies, Contaminated Soil -- Witnessing the Explosion in Toxic Torts -- Aftershocks -- Epilogue: Remodeling the Model City.
Call Number
JBF 17-53
ISBN
  • 9781469627298
  • 1469627299
LCCN
2013041122
OCLC
2013041122
Author
Spears, Ellen Griffith.
Title
Baptized in PCBs : race, pollution, and justice in an all-American town / Ellen Griffith Spears.
Publisher
Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2014]
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Series
New directions in Southern studies
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-409) and index.
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Research Call Number
JBF 17-53
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