Baptized in PCBs : race, pollution, and justice in an all-American town / Ellen Griffith Spears.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spears, Ellen Griffith, author.

Series:

New directions in southern studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Monsanto Company.

Polychlorinated biphenyls--Environmental aspects--Alabama--Anniston.

Polychlorinated biphenyls.

Polychlorinated biphenyls--Health aspects--Alabama--Anniston.

Working class--Health and hygiene.

Working class.

African Americans--Health and hygiene.

Environmental health.

Environmental justice.

History.

Polychlorinated biphenyls--Health aspects.

Polychlorinated biphenyls--Environmental aspects.

Anniston (Ala.)--Environmental conditions.

Anniston (Ala.).

Monsanto Company--History.

Environmental justice--Alabama--Anniston.

Environmental health--Alabama--Anniston.

African Americans--Health and hygiene--Alabama--Anniston.

African Americans.

Working class--Health and hygiene--Alabama--Anniston.

Anniston (Ala.)--Race relations.

Anniston (Ala.)--Social conditions.

Alabama--Anniston.

Physical Description:

xxiv, 440 pages ; 25 cm.

Other Title:

Baptized in polychlorinated biphenyls

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2014]

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. "-- Provided by publisher.

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781469611716

1469611716

OCLC:

860944046

Online:

Cover image