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
- Cover image
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JBF 17-53 | Schwarzman 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
- Subjects
- African Americans > Health and hygiene > Alabama > Anniston
- Environmental health > Alabama > Anniston
- Polychlorinated biphenyls > Environmental aspects > Alabama > Anniston
- Environmental justice > Alabama > Anniston
- HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)
- NATURE / Environmental Conservation & Protection
- Monsanto Company History
- Anniston (Ala.) > Social conditions
- Polychlorinated biphenyls > Health aspects > Alabama > Anniston
- Working class > Health and hygiene > Alabama > Anniston
- Anniston (Ala.) > Environmental conditions
- Anniston (Ala.) > Race relations
- 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.
- Connect to:
- Research Call Number
- JBF 17-53