Introducing "The Corridor": A Podcast Series about Cancer Alley with Journalist Jaha Avery

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Booking to the Environmental Justice Lab. I am your host,
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doctor Leslie Joseph. Thank you so much for joining us,
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And if you are joining us for the first time,
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you came at the right time because I have a
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very special, amazing guest. Her name is Jehan Naila Avery.
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She is a lot of things. She is a lawyer,
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constitutional law, civil rights law. She's an author, she's a journalist,
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she's a fashionista. She is an African American history scholar.
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She is a musician, she plays music. And I read somewhere.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, But you are also training
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to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Is that happening?
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That is happening. Training has been put on pause because
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I'm waiting to see what date I'm actually going to
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be going, because I want to give myself, you know,
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at least six months of training.
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Okay, but you can always train longer than six months.
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Right, Yeah, I can? And I mean, you know, I
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hike regularly anyway. I'm from Asheville, North Carolina, so I'm
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from the Blue Ridge Mountains. Grew up hiking, so I'm
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always hiking somewhere. I want to as far as training though,
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I want to do like a couple of multi day
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hikes in advance of the trip.
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Okay, all right, Well, the reason that you have bless
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us with your appearance on the show is because you
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have put together an amazing podcast series on cancer Alley,
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and we want to talk about all the things related
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to that podcast series. It was done through Threshold. If
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you're not familiar with Threshold, they are an environmental documentary podcast,
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Peabody Award winning all kind of award winning podcasts, very
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well done, very well presented, and you, as far as
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I can tell from looking at their page, are the
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first one to really dive into the environmental justice side
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of the work that they do. And so it's going
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to be really exciting to talk to you about it,
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to learn more about it, I can't wait. But first
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we got to get to know the woman behind the microphone. So, Jehai,
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you just told us you're from Ashville, North Carolina. I'm
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from rock Hill, South Carolina. A little bit different but
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kind of close. So what was it like growing up
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in Asheville, North Carolina. I can't imagine there being a
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lot of us there.
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Well, it is a small black population in Ashville, but
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we had a very tight knit Black community in Ashville
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growing up. It was amazing growing up there. I loved
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growing up in Ashville. It's called the land of the Sky,
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and it does feel that way Asheville so much, I
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tell people, I mean, honestly, of all the places that
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I have been on this beautiful earth, Ashville is probably
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still the most majestic place I've ever seen. But of
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course I didn't appreciate it growing up. I mean, who does.
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Who appreciates where they're from growing up? But now when
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I go up the mountain and I just look around,
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I'm like, wow, I can't believe I saw this every
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single day as a kid and didn't even care.
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Man, And so I guess growing up you were very
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outdoors he then a lot of nature. I heard about hiking.
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Just now, that's what you kind of did growing up
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and how you spent your time.
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We did, you know, growing up in Ashville. Our field
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trips would be white water rafting or rock climbing or hiking,
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just you know, even in our elementary school field trips,
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and so we did do a lot outdoors. I also
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also grew up in the church. My granddaddy pastored my
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home church in Ashville. He was a pastor there for
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fifty one years. Wow. Yeah. He and my grandmother moved
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up there in nineteen fifty one and they were part
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of the civil well led the civil rights movement in Ashville,
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Western North Carolina. And so I grew up in the church,
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grew up singing in the church, grew up on the
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church step team, and in the church plays. And you know,
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I tell people, most of the soft skills that I
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have now are from growing up in the black church,
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because I had to learn how to get up in
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front of a crowd and be able to speak and
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express myself. And you know, my grandmother had me learning
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poetry and you know, we had to recite poetry in
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the plays and learning scripture and having to recite that.
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And so I had a wonderful childhood.
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It was.
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It was amazing growing up in Ashville. And like I said,
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the black community there was so tight. It was very tight.
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Yet everybody knew everybody. There was always somebody that you
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could call on for whatever you needed. And so I
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really truly enjoyed growing up there. Now, Ashville's so different,
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you know, from the Asheville of my youth, because because
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now it's it's just exploded in a tourist. Okay, we
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always had tourists because the Bilt Warrant state is there. Okay,
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but now there's just you know, with Instagram, and also
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with Ashville there now being beer City, USA. Is they
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like to call yeah on all the breweries there. It's
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a different kind of tourism now with people coming in
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for just the weekend, whereas growing up, people would come
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for like two months and that was their level of tourism.
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And so, but it was it was wonderful growing up there.
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I bet it was. And obviously people found out about
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the gym that was Asheville and now they're all coming
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and trying to enjoy it as well. So it makes
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perfect sense. Yeah, it would be exploding the way it is. Mountains,
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historic landmarks, history, all that is in Nashville, and so
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it really is a great place.
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A lot of people don't know about Ashville's. There was
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actually a black Wall Street in Asheville. There was on
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Black Wall Street there, and my grandparents were a part
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of it. So I grew up knowing that, grew up
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hearing the stories about it and stuff like that, and
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also grew up benefiting from that because we had a
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whole neighborhood in Ashville called the Block, and actually the
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why am I Cultural Center in Ashville is the oldest
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African American cultural center in this country. And I grew
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up taking lessons there, you know, we would do annal
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lessons over there, or when I did etiquette school, we
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had our classes there, you know, learning how to sit
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down and eat at the table and learning how to
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present ourselves and stuff like that. And so yeah, there's
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there's definitely a lot of black history in Ashville, and
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I think that, especially with the way that tourism is
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positioned there now, that's often overlooked. So I definitely always
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make it a point to let people know. You know,
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we had black jewelers and entrepreneurs and lawyers, doctors, everything
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in Ashville, and a lot of them went to my church.
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Because there was a small type community. Of course they
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went there. So then I have to ask you what
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happened into it, because obviously when I hear Black Wall Street,
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I think automatically Tosa, Oklahoma burned to the ground and
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race riots. What happened to the Blackwall Street in Ashville?
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Then gentrification? That was a big part of it, because
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a lot of the area where black Wall Street was located,
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and there was actually kind of two pockets that it
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was kind of concentrated in in Ashville, and both of
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those areas are prime tourist spots.
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Now, of course they are.
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Yeah, and so a lot of black people have been
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priced out of Ashville. And then, you know, as people
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have aged as well, you know, a lot of like
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my grandparents are now deceased, and you know, their contemporaries,
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a lot of them are gone. And so a lot
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of the kids and grandkids ended up leaving Ashville. Most
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of my immediate family is still there, but I don't
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live there anymore. You know, it's kind of just been.
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It's been over the course of several decades that the
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black Wall Street has kind of just disappeared.
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Oh man, Well, so we grew up in Nashville, stay
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in North Carolina for education. It sounds like, so you
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went to school there, college there, law school there, so
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got your law degree from if I remember correctly, you
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and Cee Chapel Hill. Yes, you know, go Blue. I
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do support chapel Hill over Duke. In case anybody's wondering
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who's listening here. I can't I can't do Duke.
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I can't do something different.
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So I do. I do ride with the tar Heels.
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And so I'm happy to see that you got your
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law degree from there. And so you get your law degree.
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And based on what I just read earlier about your bio,
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you didn't go the Katanji Brown Jackson route and try
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to head to the Supreme Court. You went author journalism writing.
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Tell me about that journey. So you go into law school.
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I imagine you plan on being a lawyer going to
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law school, but you find yourself doing all of these
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other things instead. How did you get from there to here?
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Well, the interesting thing is I never went to law
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school because I wanted to be a lawyer. I went
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to law school because I wanted to run for public
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office and I felt like, you know, I really want
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to have a legal background. And also I felt because
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you and see laws done, we call it Carolina law,
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and so Carolina Law is a public interest law school
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is really known for its pro bono and that's a
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big part of the reason why I wanted to go
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to that school specifically. As well, aside from the fact
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that I always wanted to be a tar heel growing up,
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I also wanted to get some skills to be able
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to bring back to my community in a pro bono
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sense and to understand how to empower communities through the law.
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And so that's why I went to law school. Law
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school was a wonderful experience. I actually really loved law school,
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which you won't probably hear most people say, but I
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loved law school, and I think a big part of
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that is because I didn't have the pressure of trying
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to compete for these big law jobs, because I never
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wanted to work in big law, and you know I did.
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I practiced for about two minutes, and it ended up yeah,
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because I'm like, you know, I have this law degree.
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You know, maybe I should just try. But I always
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knew that that wasn't for me, and I realized that
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my favorite thing about it was actually talking to the clients.
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But as a as an attorney, you know, for most attorneys,
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talking to clients is such a small part of your
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day to day. And so I actually ended up going
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into startups after shortly after law school, a couple months
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after law school, and so I worked at Uber. My
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team actually brought Uber to the southeast United States. Nobody
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knew what Uber was when I first started there, and
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I remember my telling my family about my new job,
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and they basically said to me, so, your job is
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to put strangers in the car with other strangers. That
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sounds crazy, And now look, you know, yeah, it's such
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a you know, it's a it's such a big part
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of our lives. And so that was really cool. It
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was a wonderful experience. I loved being in tech and
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just being kind of, you know, right there at the
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cutting edge of innovation. I thought it was great. I
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have my you know, my thoughts about Uber now and
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just the gig economy. I don't it's funny because you know,
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back then it seemed like, oh, it's, you know, this
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wonderful thing, but now, you know, I don't agree with it.
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So but I ended up leaving Uber, ended up going
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into working at a nonprofit ride share and helping launch
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that ride share. Ended up being there for a couple
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of years, and I was laid off at the very
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start of the pandemic. So I was laid off a
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couple of weeks into the pandemic when the company completely
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shut down. And so I thought to myself, Okay, I've
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always wanted to be a writer. As a little kid,
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I wanted to be a writer. Always loved reading and writing.
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My family really encouraged my writing as a kid. And
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so I said, Okay, you know everybody's at home, we're
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in lockdown, right, I'm getting unemployment, and so now if
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I don't do this, now, this is the prime opportunity
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for me to figure out how to become a professional writer.
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And I had things that you know, just have been
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on my heart for years that I had want to write,
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but I never had time because you know, I'm at
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I was working crazy hours in both startups, and so yeah,
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I basically just sat down and taught myself, you know,
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how to pitch, how to deal with editors, what a
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contract should look like, how to negotiate. I had those
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skills from law school, but I had to hone them
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in specifically for journalism and for you a freelance journalist.
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And so six months after I made that decision I'm
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going to be a writer, I got my first byline
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in the New York Times, And you know, that kind
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of was just opened the door and things took off
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from there.
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Wow. Wow, the first thing you published is in New
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York Times.
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Not the first thing. My first article was actually in
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We Need diverse books. I did a piece on the
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challenges that black bookstores are facing and black bookstores as
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a community organizing space, and that's to this day one
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of my favorite articles that I've ever done. And then
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my second article was in The New York Times. Wow.
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And then from there, I mean, I'm reading the list.
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I mean there's New York Times, there's Vanity Fair, there's Essence,
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there's The Architectural Digest, Rolling Stone, so many amazing, big time,
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big name publications that you have published in. How would
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you describe the kind of work journalists that you want
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to do or that you would be seeking to put
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out for us to enjoy.
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Well, I'm not on staff anywhere. I'm still freelance, and
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I'm starting with that because a big part of my
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work and the reason that I want to stay freelance,
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is because I want to work on things that are
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meaningful to me, things that are meaningful to my community,
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not just cranking out, you know, articles to meet a
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content quota. And so that's been a part of my
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ethos as a journalist, is remaining freelance so far anyway,
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just because of the fact that I do want to
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be able to work on what I want to work on.
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And so when I come up with an idea or
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sometimes editors will contact me and ask me, you know, hey,
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are you interested in writing about this? Now that I
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have relationships with editors, a lot of my work is
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at the intersection between black culture black history, and so
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that could be a manifest itselfish in fashion or in finance,
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or you know, many different fields, but typically the foundation
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is going to be black history and black culture. And
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so I asked myself, you know, this is me putting
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this article out there. Is this going to advance progress
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or educate the black community? And if the answer is no,
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I don't take it. I'm actually I've actually turned down
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several different ideas that others have come to me with
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as I don't feel that it's going to benefit my community.
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And so that's a big piece for me, you know,
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big foundational piece for me. But as far as the
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ideas that I come up with, one thing that I
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really love is being able to just find out so
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many things. There's so much about history that we still
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don't know. And as a matter of fact, the project,
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the next project that I'm working on that I've already
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started working on, I was coming through some archives and
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just ended up finding something and I'm like, oh my god,
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this is so interesting something that happened in North Carolina
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in nineteen eleven. And I'm like, I am going to
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resurrect this and I'm going to put this back in
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front of the public attention. And so, you know, I
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enjoy working on things like that as well being able
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to uplift and highlight black history. You know, I come
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from a family of sharecroppers. My family, my family's been
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in North Carolina for nearly three hundred years.
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Wow.
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Okay, my family was enslaved in this state. My great
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grandparents and great great grandparents were sharecroppers in this state.
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My family was enslaved in this state longer than we've
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been free in this state. And so I say that
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to say that a I'm a Carolina girl through and through.
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Yep, yep, we can see that. Absolutely.
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I love North Carolina and I tell people, you know,
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when people ask me who I am, being a Southerner
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is a big part of who I am. You know,
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Southern culture to me is so beautiful, is so unique,
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especially Afro Southern culture, which makes up the basis of
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Southern culture. Let's just be real There is no Southern
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culture without Black culture.
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Absolutely absolutely, you know.
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I'm just so proud of that, and so a lot
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of my work, particularly as it relates to black history,
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a lot of my work focuses on giving voice to
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experiences into people that weren't able to speak up in
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their time. And that's the thing that I love the
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most about talking about history and relating it to culture
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and to the parallels of what we see going on today.
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Absolutely absolutely. So. Then with that kind of foundation, then
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how did you find yourself in this environmental justice world
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that you've entered into, Because now you're going into a
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realm that obviously affects black people very directly and very
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in many different ways. But it's not necessarily the avenue
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that you may have just taken as you do your
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work and as you continue to publish. The great word
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that you've been publishing doesn't seem, at least on the surface,
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to fit in with that kind of approach that you've
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been taking up to this point.
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Yeah, So, you know, I didn't set out to necessarily say,
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oh I won I'm going to write, you know, in
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the environmental justice space, but I saw a call for
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proposals and This was in November of twenty twenty two.
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I have read about Cancer Alley maybe about three weeks
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before that, and I was just astounded, like, how can
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this happen? You know, I grew up going to New
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Orleans with my grandparents. Loved New Orleans. They loved New Orleans,
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and so I grew up going down there. Never knew
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that about forty five fifty minutes outside New Orleans was
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this eighty five mile stretch of land that stretches from
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you know, all along River Road up until Baton Rouge
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that people were calling Cancer Alli. I never knew that,
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And so I read this article about It was a
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short article, and I was just flabbergasted. Yeah, it it
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gave a snapshot, and a lot of the reporting that
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we see on Cancer Alley gives a snapshot of what's
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going on right now in the moment. But as soon
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as I read that article, I immediately thought to myself,
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something like that doesn't happen overnight. Number one, and something
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like that is for sure by design, But what so
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what is the design? You know? How did this happen?
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How are we just okay with a place being called
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Cancer Alley and we're fine with it and we're just
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supposed to accept it. And so I had read that
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and just kind of had that in the back of
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my mind, you know, mulled over it, and I had
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already told myself, Okay, I'm going to do some more
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research on this when I have an opportunity. Well, like
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I said, about two three weeks later, ended up seeing
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a call for proposals. Threshold was looking for writers that
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they could bring on as a part of the team
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to produce a four to seven episode season that they
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could you know, release as their next season. And so
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I thought back to that idea, like, hmm, this doesn't
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necessarily seem to be the work that they do because
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it seems to be more on the biology side, but
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maybe this is something that they might be interested in.
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So I had probably two days to put together my
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proposal because the deadline was two days from the day
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I saw it. So I'm you know, sat down, did
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some preliminary research, and basically what I did was I
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took all of the questions that I had myself about
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this situation and essentially put that in the proposal and said,
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these are the things that I'm going to be seeking
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answers to in this season. One thing that I've learned,
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as far as you know, I'm always having to come
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up ideas, again me being freelance, and I love coming
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up with ideas. But one of the things that really
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helps me is I know that if I'm curious about
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something and I'm interested in something, other people are going
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to be interested in finding out answers to that as well.
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So that was one of the basis of my proposals.
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Just put that stuff in there, sent it in, and
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then about two months later and several rounds of interviews later,
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they told me we would like you to join Threshold
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to produce this season on Cancer Alley. So that's how
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that started, and of course that kicked off two and
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a half years of working on this season. And then
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of course me be in from North Carolina and I
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live closer to eastern North Carolina now, which the birthplace
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of the modern day environmental justice movement, as many of
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us know, is in eastern North Carolina, Warren County, North Carolina.
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And so in the course of me reporting for this season,
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it's almost like I just started seeing and these are
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things I had always seen as a North Carolina native
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and somebody that's pretty much tapped into what's going on
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in North Carolina, but I was seeing them in a
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different way, you know, like, oh, I have well water
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because I live in the country, the infrastructure with well watered.
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As climate change happens and stuff like that, these wells
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are getting damaged and no one's regulating the wells environmental
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justice and see in the past, I would have seen
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that as more of a policy issue, and yes it
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is a policy issue, but at its course environmental justice.
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And so that's kind of how I have come around
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to just it helped me reframe the way that I
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saw the issues that are being faced by my own
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community and others here in North Carolina. And just in
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reporting this season, of course, you know there's a million
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different threads and you just hear about all of these
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different things, and so that got me interested in it.
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And now here I am environmental justice reporter.
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That's right, that's right, and we're going to all benefit
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from the work that you do. I love how you
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talked about reframing the issues because that's one thing that
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I do want to continue to do on this podcast
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and wherever I do my work as well, because I
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know that out kind of in the mainstream discussions about
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things like climate change or environmental you know, degradation, it's
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very much generalized, and it's very much kind of globalized
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in a way that doesn't really pinpoint the specific individuals
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who are most vulnerable, who are most disproportionately impacted by
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a lot of these issues. And so I do appreciate
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anyone who's willing to frame it properly and to allow
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people to see the true nature of what these environmental
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hazards are doing or what this lack of you know,
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enforcement results in for specific populations and people who are
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under those government authorities. And so to hear you talk
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of about environmental justice, I mean words like environmental racism.
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All these things point to that reality. And so because
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of that we get to have the corridor. That is
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the name of this podcast series, by Threshold is I'm
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going to read it. I wrote it down. It is
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a podcast about history, pollution, and resistance on the front
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lines of America's petrochemical industry. Love the byline. First of all,
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that's exactly what it is. It's not just looking at pollution,
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it's not just looking back, but it's also looking ahead
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at what people are doing actively today to redress some
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of those injustices that they've experienced. And so I'm excited.
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I think it's the six episodes or seven seven it's
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seven seven episodes. You just mentioned two years of I
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guess production, what went into that? So what were you
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actually doing for those two years to put this thing together?
436
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So it was two and a half years, two and
437
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a half doing a ton of research. Yeah, let's not
438
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forget that half. Now, look those months I was putting
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in work, but started out doing a ton of research,
440
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basically combing through archives, combing through court cases, just kind
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of reading everything that I could, not just about the
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making of Cancer Ali, so to speak, but going all
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the way back, because if we're going to talk about
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the making of Cancer Alley, we can't talk about the
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making of Cancer Ali without talking about slavery and how
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slavery in Louisiana shaped this country. And so literally just
447
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spent quite some time in archives. And again it's not
448
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easy necessarily coming through archives from the eighteen hundreds, and
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so you know, some of that required some interpretation and
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also the use of certain tools to be able to
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be able to see things more clearly. Some of the
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documents are just very difficult to read, and so started
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with the research process really and then I spent quite
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some time in Cancer Alley just being a part of
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the community, you know, meeting people, interviewing people, sitting down
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with people. I went to many public meetings that were
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held there, and went to churches there and sat and
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you know, had church service and worshiped with folks there,
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and sat down and broke bread with folks there. So
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and visited more plantations than I've visited up until my
461
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you know, for the past two years, I've been more
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plantations than I had my whole life before that. Yeah,
463
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you know. Well, and the interesting thing about it is
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that what we're the stretch of land that we're calling
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Cancer Alley today two hundred years ago, was called planting country.
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And one of the most shocking discoveries for me was
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you can take a map of Cancer Alley today, you
468
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can put that over a map of plantation country in
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eighteen twenty six, and the lines looked the exact same. Wow,
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exact same. And so you know, what was once sugar
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cane plantations are now petrochemical plants. There's still a lot
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of sugarcane plantations there. Of course, the Whitney being probably
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the most famous plantation, well notable, let me say, yeah there,
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and so it is interesting seeing this kind of tug
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of war between the community, the plantations, and the petrochemical plants.
476
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And so, yeah, spent quite a bit of time in
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Cancer Alley. Also, so I stayed in New Orleans because
478
00:27:56.799 --> 00:27:59.400
there weren't any hotels. You know, Cancer Alley is not
479
00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:01.119
somewhere that people go for tours.
480
00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:05.240
Yeah, people aren't trying to visit, yes, And.
481
00:28:05.279 --> 00:28:07.759
So I stayed in New Orleans and would drive into
482
00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:11.680
Cancer Alley every day. You're driving across the Bayou, through
483
00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:14.920
the Bayous, and you know, just and it's it really
484
00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:19.039
is a beautiful and scenic drive. And you know, there's
485
00:28:19.079 --> 00:28:21.960
so much greenery there, and that I think that's what
486
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:25.160
people may be surprised about. There's so much greenery there.
487
00:28:25.279 --> 00:28:30.160
There are so many different animals and just wildlife there.
488
00:28:30.359 --> 00:28:32.640
I mean, there's a ton of natural beauty. And it's
489
00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:37.400
it's so jarring because you'll see like a beautiful, little
490
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:41.400
picturesque fishing hole and then two minutes down the road
491
00:28:41.480 --> 00:28:46.799
you see the steel of this huge petrochemical campus, and
492
00:28:46.839 --> 00:28:49.599
so it's very jarring to see. I was shocked. When
493
00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:52.880
I first went there, I had never seen anything like it.
494
00:28:52.519 --> 00:28:55.839
It was just completely shocking to me to see, you know,
495
00:28:55.880 --> 00:29:00.599
a little tiny country church and then literally fifteen feet
496
00:29:01.240 --> 00:29:04.599
you have the fence line of like the Exxon plant,
497
00:29:05.079 --> 00:29:07.519
you know, and then you in between all of this
498
00:29:08.279 --> 00:29:09.880
you have sugar cane crops.
499
00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:12.680
Interesting.
500
00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:15.480
So yeah, I mean, you know that all of the
501
00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:18.519
plantations they are harvested sugar cane, and they still harvest
502
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:23.480
sugar cane today, and some of the plants harvest sugar cane,
503
00:29:24.279 --> 00:29:28.920
and so it's a very very interesting thing to see.
504
00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:32.160
And so yeah, I spent time time there. I did
505
00:29:32.200 --> 00:29:35.200
a lot of remote interviewing as well, because I spoke
506
00:29:35.240 --> 00:29:37.839
with people all over the country and all over the
507
00:29:37.880 --> 00:29:43.039
world there are petro chemical plants or cancer alleys. Globally.
508
00:29:43.119 --> 00:29:45.160
We don't have the only cancer alley. There are cancer
509
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:49.319
alleys in China and in France and in South Africa,
510
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:53.240
and so I spoke to people that are seeing this
511
00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:57.559
in their own communities across the globe. And so a
512
00:29:57.599 --> 00:30:00.319
big part of it was the research and reporting, and
513
00:30:00.359 --> 00:30:02.720
then of course it was the scripting and the editing
514
00:30:02.759 --> 00:30:07.160
of the episodes, and then it was the actual narration
515
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:12.359
of everything of the episodes and their Threshold is such
516
00:30:12.359 --> 00:30:15.720
an amazing team. It's an amazing team. I don't do
517
00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:21.279
audio production myself, and so Erica and Sam, who are
518
00:30:21.599 --> 00:30:25.160
the producers who did all of the audio production for
519
00:30:25.319 --> 00:30:30.079
the Corridor, are just incredible. Like everything that you know,
520
00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:33.480
the entire episode being put together and everything that you
521
00:30:33.519 --> 00:30:36.880
will hear, it was their hard work that went into
522
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:39.240
piecing all of that together. So of course I did
523
00:30:39.319 --> 00:30:42.759
the narration, but they, you know, took all the audio
524
00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:45.039
clips and all the interviews and just put all of
525
00:30:45.079 --> 00:30:48.119
that together, and you know, then went into post production
526
00:30:48.359 --> 00:30:51.960
and mixed everything and with the music and you know,
527
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:54.640
all of that, and so it's just it's been a
528
00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:59.160
major major undertaking and I don't know that I quite
529
00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:01.640
knew what I was getting into when I first started
530
00:31:01.640 --> 00:31:05.720
this journey, but I'm so proud of what we've done.
531
00:31:06.680 --> 00:31:10.119
I'm so happy about how it turned out, and I'm
532
00:31:10.160 --> 00:31:13.039
so grateful to have been able to be there to
533
00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:16.880
meet the people there in that community. They treated me
534
00:31:17.599 --> 00:31:19.480
like I was a part of their community, and I
535
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:23.240
am use one thing about it. In the black community,
536
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:25.240
we are not going to let somebody come to our
537
00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:26.440
house and not feed them.
538
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:27.960
That's right, that's right.
539
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:31.359
We are not gonna let somebody come to our house
540
00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:34.039
and we don't sit on the porch and talk to
541
00:31:34.200 --> 00:31:36.400
Peky for a little bit, or sit at the dining
542
00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:39.359
room table and talking Kiki, or you know, break out
543
00:31:39.400 --> 00:31:43.079
the photo albums and show from show pictures from fifty
544
00:31:43.160 --> 00:31:45.759
years ago. And so I think that they maybe that
545
00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:49.960
might be the thing that people are not expecting about
546
00:31:50.279 --> 00:31:52.960
this season in general. And I think that that's also
547
00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:57.160
something that's largely missing in a lot of environmental reporting,
548
00:31:57.240 --> 00:32:00.400
and that is the people. That's the people. You know,
549
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:04.279
this is not cancer alli to them, this is home
550
00:32:04.559 --> 00:32:09.680
to j And so you know, I had a woman
551
00:32:09.720 --> 00:32:13.279
in her nineties, I believe she's ninety four, Miss oral Lee.
552
00:32:13.599 --> 00:32:16.480
She shared her family's candy pea can recipe with me,
553
00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:18.480
and not only did she share it, she made me
554
00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:20.920
get in the kitchen and make it. And that's how
555
00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:23.440
I learned it. But I was going to her home
556
00:32:23.480 --> 00:32:25.519
for an interview and she was like, let's make these
557
00:32:25.519 --> 00:32:28.079
candy pea cans. And She's sat there and told me
558
00:32:28.119 --> 00:32:30.160
how to make it, and I'm moving around her kitchen
559
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:33.440
like this is my grandmother. Yeah, you know, I had
560
00:32:33.519 --> 00:32:36.079
other people make me neck bones. I got to their
561
00:32:36.079 --> 00:32:38.119
home for an interview and it was a plate of
562
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:40.200
neck bones waiting on me. And I'm like, Okay, it's
563
00:32:40.240 --> 00:32:42.160
gonna be hard. Which one do I go for a
564
00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:46.039
further the interview or the neckbone. But again, that's the
565
00:32:46.079 --> 00:32:48.440
spirit of the Black community, no matter where we are,
566
00:32:48.559 --> 00:32:52.240
no matter the circumstances that are being faced, that is
567
00:32:52.279 --> 00:32:55.279
the spirit of the Black community, which is generosity, which
568
00:32:55.319 --> 00:32:57.680
is love, which is caring for each other, and a
569
00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:00.000
lot of times that manifests at the dinner time.
570
00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:03.960
That's right, that's right. No, You're absolutely right. And I
571
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.680
tell people all the time, like I'll say this, You're
572
00:33:07.759 --> 00:33:11.640
probably one of the few people who could really put
573
00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:14.599
something like this together because you being who you are,
574
00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:18.039
where you're from, your background, being in the community, being
575
00:33:18.039 --> 00:33:22.240
a part of the community, we are always connected no
576
00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:24.079
matter where we go, no matter where we find ourselves.
577
00:33:24.119 --> 00:33:27.400
I find that too when I go to different universities
578
00:33:27.480 --> 00:33:30.359
or if I go and teach different classes different places,
579
00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:32.839
we find each other. We look out for each other,
580
00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:35.920
we care about each other, we love each other. Right,
581
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:39.799
that's just the spirit of who we are as people.
582
00:33:39.839 --> 00:33:42.960
And so it's amazing that you got that experience, and
583
00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:46.680
I'm sure it's going to shine through the podcast series.
584
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:49.400
And you know, on that note, what are some of
585
00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:52.400
the things that you think we should know about cancer
586
00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:55.359
that I won't really read about that I might not
587
00:33:55.440 --> 00:33:58.440
even hear because you had to get to the meat
588
00:33:58.480 --> 00:34:02.200
of the issues. But you know, are there misconceptions about
589
00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:07.640
the people there or the conditions there? Are there misunderstandings
590
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:09.920
about what's really going on? Like what do you think
591
00:34:10.599 --> 00:34:14.079
we might be missing from what we currently know about
592
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:14.760
cancer Alley?
593
00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:18.360
So I think that one of the things that people
594
00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:21.559
have tended to ask me the most when I have
595
00:34:21.639 --> 00:34:26.639
spoken about this work is I wouldn't live somewhere where
596
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:28.880
there are all these petrochemical plants that I know I'm
597
00:34:28.920 --> 00:34:31.719
being poisoned. Why wouldn't people leave?
598
00:34:32.079 --> 00:34:33.239
Just move? Yeah, just move.
599
00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:36.519
I think that that's probably the biggest thing that is
600
00:34:36.559 --> 00:34:41.199
important to address with Cancer Alley, but also with any
601
00:34:41.559 --> 00:34:51.039
any area where environmental racism is communities are dealing with that. Okay,
602
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:54.159
first of all, we know it's expensive to move. It's
603
00:34:54.199 --> 00:34:57.519
expensive to move, you know, and then property values in
604
00:34:57.559 --> 00:35:01.679
this area are very low, and so you know, people
605
00:35:01.719 --> 00:35:03.639
don't want to just have to pack up their lives
606
00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:07.199
and move. But even if you take the money out
607
00:35:07.239 --> 00:35:09.800
of it, people don't want to leave because their great
608
00:35:09.800 --> 00:35:13.239
great grandmother is buried right down the street. People don't
609
00:35:13.239 --> 00:35:15.159
want to leave because they grew up in that church
610
00:35:15.719 --> 00:35:18.119
two miles from here, and that's their home church, and
611
00:35:18.159 --> 00:35:20.199
that's where they were baptized, and that's where they sing
612
00:35:20.199 --> 00:35:23.559
in the choir every Sunday. You know, people don't want
613
00:35:23.599 --> 00:35:27.679
to leave because they went to that high school ten
614
00:35:27.719 --> 00:35:31.280
minutes away and they love going back to the football games.
615
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:34.360
You know. That is the piece that I really want
616
00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:39.280
people to understand is when we talk about home, we're
617
00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:43.000
not just talking about the physical house, the physical place,
618
00:35:43.239 --> 00:35:48.559
but it's those memories, it's those connections. There are people
619
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:54.719
who descended from the enslaved people who were part of
620
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:58.920
the eighteen eleven slavery volt which was the largest slavery
621
00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:02.639
vote in UA history, which is never talked about because
622
00:36:02.679 --> 00:36:05.400
they were almost successful in what they were trying to do,
623
00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:09.719
but it involved hundreds of enslaved people in that area
624
00:36:10.360 --> 00:36:15.599
liberating themselves and the plantations that they passed by as
625
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:19.360
they were on their way to New Orleans. And so
626
00:36:20.199 --> 00:36:25.239
you have people who had ancestors that participated in that wow.
627
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:28.400
And in the same way that they liberated themselves from
628
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:33.360
the plantation, their descendants today are attempting to liberate themselves
629
00:36:33.400 --> 00:36:38.639
from the plants and the drawbacks and the you know,
630
00:36:38.920 --> 00:36:42.960
the things that are going on to poison their communities.
631
00:36:44.039 --> 00:36:48.000
So it's about liberation as well. You know, it's not
632
00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:50.920
just about that physical house and sell that physical house
633
00:36:50.960 --> 00:36:55.840
and just leave. And so that is always the number
634
00:36:55.840 --> 00:36:59.000
one thing that I talk about when it comes to
635
00:36:59.159 --> 00:37:02.320
what my people want to know or be surprised about.
636
00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:05.880
These people love where they live, They love their home,
637
00:37:06.159 --> 00:37:09.519
and I think also, you know, I know, for me,
638
00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:13.239
we were just talking about how being a Southerner is
639
00:37:13.280 --> 00:37:15.880
such a big part of my identity, and it's not
640
00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:18.599
just being a Southerner, being a North Carolinian. Like I'm
641
00:37:18.679 --> 00:37:21.519
proud to be North Carolinian. I'm proud of where I'm from.
642
00:37:21.639 --> 00:37:26.239
I'm proud of my home. They feel the same way, yeah,
643
00:37:26.519 --> 00:37:31.239
of their home, you know, And so you know, they
644
00:37:31.480 --> 00:37:35.079
they want the chance to stay there, they want a
645
00:37:35.159 --> 00:37:38.079
chance to live there. And when I say live, I
646
00:37:38.119 --> 00:37:40.559
don't mean just have a life there, but I mean
647
00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:45.400
physically live in their home and not die in their
648
00:37:45.480 --> 00:37:47.920
home because of cancer man.
649
00:37:48.599 --> 00:37:50.719
No, that's beautiful. So would you say then that the
650
00:37:51.320 --> 00:37:55.760
obviously the Man's Spacing Proclamation occurred in eighteen sixty five
651
00:37:56.280 --> 00:38:02.599
June tenth, there's no official we're freed, But would you
652
00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:07.360
argue that that freedom struggle is ongoing in Cancer Alley,
653
00:38:07.440 --> 00:38:11.840
that they're still trying to free themselves from these oppressive
654
00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:16.960
forces and these conditions that are harming everybody that lives there.
655
00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:22.039
Yes, absolutely, absolutely, And again it goes back to it
656
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:26.920
being by design. So the reason that these communities are
657
00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:29.159
made up in the way that they're made up, and
658
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:32.639
I mean demographics wise, is again because of slavery. The
659
00:38:32.679 --> 00:38:35.719
people that live there now, they wouldn't be living there,
660
00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:39.920
and that wouldn't be home had their ancestors not been
661
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.360
enslaved on these sugarcane plantations there. So their ancestors are
662
00:38:43.400 --> 00:38:47.599
brought there and then they build you this generational connection
663
00:38:47.800 --> 00:38:51.039
to this area. And so that's a part of what
664
00:38:51.119 --> 00:38:54.000
makes it home as well. And so one thing too
665
00:38:54.159 --> 00:38:58.119
that I really loved and found so interesting as I
666
00:38:58.159 --> 00:39:01.719
started to spend time there and learn more about the area.
667
00:39:01.800 --> 00:39:06.360
There are so many free towns in that area. There
668
00:39:06.360 --> 00:39:10.800
were so many instances where you had, you know, in
669
00:39:10.840 --> 00:39:15.760
the wake of the Civil War, you had newly freed
670
00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:20.559
black people coming together and forming these towns, and they
671
00:39:20.639 --> 00:39:26.599
were strong towns. A lot of them were very strong, sufficient,
672
00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:31.159
you know, amazing towns that were formed and that were
673
00:39:31.239 --> 00:39:36.760
actually sustained for quite some time until you know, violence
674
00:39:36.840 --> 00:39:42.199
and white violences, particularly from the KKK, started to take
675
00:39:42.519 --> 00:39:46.840
take these towns, and not just that but also political violence,
676
00:39:47.039 --> 00:39:52.920
you know, after reconstruction, making it easy to take the
677
00:39:53.039 --> 00:39:56.880
land from people. And so but there are a lot
678
00:39:57.000 --> 00:39:59.800
of free towns there, some of them still exist to
679
00:39:59.880 --> 00:40:02.800
the this day, and I just find that so incredible
680
00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:07.039
because that is something that is of course, we had
681
00:40:07.079 --> 00:40:09.719
a lot of black towns that were settled by newly
682
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:12.960
freed people, but to have towns that still exist to
683
00:40:13.079 --> 00:40:16.599
this day, and just to know what they created back then,
684
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:19.559
it's something to be proud of. And I'm proud of it,
685
00:40:19.760 --> 00:40:22.119
you know. And so I was so excited to really
686
00:40:22.199 --> 00:40:27.480
discover the prevalence of these towns there. And I think
687
00:40:27.559 --> 00:40:33.000
that again, you have such a resilient spirit in this area.
688
00:40:33.039 --> 00:40:37.280
There was the spirit of resilience there. What they did
689
00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:40.679
in the eighteen eleven slavery vote for them to even
690
00:40:40.719 --> 00:40:45.079
be able to organize like that across plantations when people
691
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:47.679
they they weren't even supposed to be walking from one
692
00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:51.400
plantation to another, but yet they were able to, you know,
693
00:40:51.599 --> 00:40:56.519
strategize and organize. You know, these were I often tell people,
694
00:40:57.159 --> 00:41:03.480
you know, they didn't take slaves from Africa. They took architects,
695
00:41:03.920 --> 00:41:07.519
and they took engineers, they took artists and writers, and
696
00:41:07.639 --> 00:41:14.199
you know, so the strategizing that happened around this slavery
697
00:41:14.280 --> 00:41:19.360
volt that spirit, that energy is the same strategy that
698
00:41:19.559 --> 00:41:24.440
I see today when it comes to people organizing against
699
00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:28.719
having for most of Plastics build another plant in Cancer Alley,
700
00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:31.440
which they did manage to stop. I see that same
701
00:41:31.679 --> 00:41:37.079
energy in them, you know, fighting against Exxon and Shell
702
00:41:37.400 --> 00:41:40.280
and all of Marathon and all of these that same
703
00:41:40.440 --> 00:41:44.159
energy exists. And so there's that through line, you know,
704
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:49.920
there's that connection, the ancestral connection, the historical connection, And
705
00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:52.639
to me, that's the strongest thing about this story.
706
00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:57.000
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a powerful, powerful understanding of why
707
00:41:57.039 --> 00:41:59.840
we got to where we are now. And I do
708
00:42:00.199 --> 00:42:02.679
to push a little bit further to because earlier in
709
00:42:02.679 --> 00:42:05.800
our conversation you talked about how their cancer alleys all
710
00:42:05.840 --> 00:42:08.559
over the world. Yes, and that there are places all
711
00:42:08.599 --> 00:42:12.639
over that are having these same issues. And could you
712
00:42:12.679 --> 00:42:14.760
tell us more about what you learned about that. I'm
713
00:42:14.760 --> 00:42:17.480
sure it's not going to be prominent. Maybe it is
714
00:42:17.559 --> 00:42:19.519
prominent in the podcast series, but I would love to
715
00:42:19.559 --> 00:42:24.079
learn more about that, and also what you have learned
716
00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:28.840
what you imagine would be underlying those other cancer alleys.
717
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:34.000
Is it slavery related? Are there other types of issues
718
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:35.760
in these countries that we might not be aware of
719
00:42:36.159 --> 00:42:38.360
that would lend itself to make it more vulnerable for
720
00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:41.000
this to happen, Like, what can you tell us about that?
721
00:42:42.760 --> 00:42:45.320
So, yes, there are cancer alleys all over the world.
722
00:42:45.480 --> 00:42:49.400
And one of the areas that we specifically focus on
723
00:42:49.519 --> 00:42:53.079
in the season is an area that is in France.
724
00:42:53.199 --> 00:42:56.800
It's on the coast of France and not coast in
725
00:42:56.840 --> 00:43:01.880
the south south of France, sorry. And this area was
726
00:43:02.199 --> 00:43:05.760
made up of you know, poor to working class people
727
00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:11.079
and they well, and a lot of them were they
728
00:43:11.079 --> 00:43:13.239
were all working class people would allow them were low
729
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:18.239
income people, and they just started bringing plants into this
730
00:43:18.400 --> 00:43:21.800
area and the people rose up, they fought against it,
731
00:43:21.960 --> 00:43:25.199
and there's been so many health issues. And one pattern
732
00:43:25.239 --> 00:43:29.199
that happens with cancer alleys, no matter where they are,
733
00:43:29.239 --> 00:43:33.320
the community always knows that something is wrong before anyone else.
734
00:43:33.800 --> 00:43:36.559
And so yeah, and so what ends up happening is
735
00:43:36.920 --> 00:43:41.239
people start noticing, oh wow, many women that I know
736
00:43:41.760 --> 00:43:44.800
are having miscarriages, Oh wow, many people that I know
737
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:47.679
are getting diagnosed with cancer. You know, oh wow, we're
738
00:43:47.760 --> 00:43:51.679
drinking this water, and you know, we're we're getting all
739
00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:54.599
of these health issues or you know, the pollution is
740
00:43:54.599 --> 00:43:58.679
causing asthma. People know, they know right away, but then
741
00:43:59.599 --> 00:44:05.960
it's a matter of getting that taken seriously by decision makers.
742
00:44:06.679 --> 00:44:11.199
And so the situation in France it was very similar
743
00:44:11.480 --> 00:44:16.960
in that the community started noticing the effects first and
744
00:44:17.280 --> 00:44:22.159
started advocating against the petrochemical plants, and then the government
745
00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:25.840
pushed back. So we see that. You know, that's really
746
00:44:26.159 --> 00:44:29.039
the structure that has happened in Louisia, and I happened
747
00:44:29.079 --> 00:44:31.800
in China, happened in France, and so we see that.
748
00:44:32.199 --> 00:44:36.760
But I think that the more common thread there is
749
00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:41.239
this idea of a sacrifice zone. And I absolutely hate
750
00:44:41.280 --> 00:44:43.880
that term, but I do understand that we need a
751
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:47.960
term for what is going on. And you know, it
752
00:44:48.039 --> 00:44:51.079
really goes to the question of in all of these
753
00:44:51.119 --> 00:44:54.320
cancer alleys globally, I think that the root of it
754
00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:58.559
is the question of what communities are okay to sacrifice, right,
755
00:44:59.360 --> 00:45:01.039
And that's really what it goes back to.
756
00:45:01.639 --> 00:45:05.000
And apparently all around the world, these communities are always
757
00:45:05.079 --> 00:45:08.320
they always look the same when it's time to sacrifice
758
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:13.559
or decide who gets sacrificed for these industries and these plants.
759
00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:18.159
Are these cancer alleys the same types of industries.
760
00:45:18.639 --> 00:45:22.760
Yes, they are. Yeah, So you know, gas and oil
761
00:45:23.079 --> 00:45:26.159
is a big thing, and then in China there are
762
00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:31.400
others like fisheries and canneries and things like that, but
763
00:45:32.440 --> 00:45:34.920
gas and oil, of course is a big one. I
764
00:45:34.960 --> 00:45:38.239
would say. We're definitely here, of course, but in other
765
00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:42.199
western countries where we see this mm hm, and then
766
00:45:42.760 --> 00:45:46.280
you have again like canneries and things like that that
767
00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:48.920
seem to be the prevalent thing in China.
768
00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:52.719
Oh my goodness, we're running out of time. I appreciate
769
00:45:52.760 --> 00:45:55.400
all your time, obviously. I do want to end on
770
00:45:55.400 --> 00:45:59.679
one quote that I read in the press kind of
771
00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:04.320
packet that I received about the podcast. You said something
772
00:46:04.360 --> 00:46:06.679
in your notes I thought was really interesting and I
773
00:46:06.679 --> 00:46:09.239
wanted to get your kind of full thoughts on it.
774
00:46:09.480 --> 00:46:11.880
You say here, what I want people to understand is
775
00:46:11.920 --> 00:46:15.000
that so much of what we see today has roots
776
00:46:15.079 --> 00:46:19.119
in slavery. I can't think of a major issue facing
777
00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:24.360
this country today that can't be traced directly back to
778
00:46:24.400 --> 00:46:28.800
the transatlantic and later domestic slave trade. We must examine
779
00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:33.119
those connections thoughtfully and thoroughly, then act upon what we know.
780
00:46:33.719 --> 00:46:36.719
Future generations are depending on us. Our generation is depending
781
00:46:36.760 --> 00:46:40.360
on us. Very strong statement. I love it, But could
782
00:46:40.400 --> 00:46:42.920
you tell us more about how you came to that
783
00:46:42.960 --> 00:46:46.599
conclusion that every major issue this is going beyond just
784
00:46:46.639 --> 00:46:49.119
cancer allity. Now you say something like that, you're talking
785
00:46:49.159 --> 00:46:55.199
about what education, You're talking about politics and the justice system,
786
00:46:55.320 --> 00:46:59.119
and you're talking about food, and you're talking about health
787
00:46:59.280 --> 00:47:04.199
and every major issue that everybody comes to the table
788
00:47:04.239 --> 00:47:06.079
to discuss, how we're going to resolve, how we're gonna
789
00:47:06.079 --> 00:47:09.280
fix it, how we're gonna make things better for regular people.
790
00:47:09.960 --> 00:47:15.400
You're saying we could trace all of it back the slavery.
791
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:18.119
Tell me more about how you came to that conclusion.
792
00:47:18.320 --> 00:47:22.079
Well, as you mentioned, you mentioned education, I mean I
793
00:47:22.119 --> 00:47:25.559
can just look at any issue and see, Okay, that's
794
00:47:25.599 --> 00:47:28.679
typically what I do as well. Let me start with this,
795
00:47:29.360 --> 00:47:31.800
and even in the making of the corridor, it was
796
00:47:31.880 --> 00:47:34.280
because when I look at things, I'm not just looking
797
00:47:34.320 --> 00:47:38.000
at what's going on right now. My mind immediately goes
798
00:47:38.039 --> 00:47:41.440
to why are we here? What led us to being here?
799
00:47:41.960 --> 00:47:46.679
And so I immediately start taking things back. It really
800
00:47:46.760 --> 00:47:49.880
is true. Until you understand the history, you know, you're
801
00:47:49.960 --> 00:47:52.280
doomed to repeat it. And that's what we see going
802
00:47:52.360 --> 00:47:54.960
on right now is history is repeating itself in a
803
00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:57.559
lot of ways, or trying to repeat itself in a
804
00:47:57.559 --> 00:48:01.000
lot of ways. But for the resons distance of the people.
805
00:48:01.199 --> 00:48:04.639
But yeah, any any major issue, you know, we talk
806
00:48:04.719 --> 00:48:08.840
about mass incarceration, we can we can look back to
807
00:48:08.880 --> 00:48:11.440
the chain gang, and then before that, we can look
808
00:48:11.480 --> 00:48:14.159
as to why does it how did the chain gang exist,
809
00:48:14.679 --> 00:48:18.280
you know, to push people into a new form of slavery.
810
00:48:19.119 --> 00:48:22.920
We can look at you know, agriculture and what's going
811
00:48:22.960 --> 00:48:26.960
on with farming, and particularly how black farmers are being
812
00:48:27.079 --> 00:48:31.480
shut out of these USDA grants and USDA programs. That's right,
813
00:48:31.639 --> 00:48:35.000
et cetera, et cetera. Well, why black people even if
814
00:48:35.039 --> 00:48:38.920
you're looking at real estate, you know, you know, purchasing
815
00:48:39.039 --> 00:48:43.320
land for farming, Black people were never supposed to own
816
00:48:43.360 --> 00:48:47.800
property in this country. Why, because of slavery, Black people
817
00:48:47.800 --> 00:48:51.880
were property. They were not supposed to own property. And
818
00:48:51.960 --> 00:48:56.679
so education, I mean, we see that, that's pretty clear.
819
00:48:57.000 --> 00:48:59.880
We have, you know, going from a period where you
820
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:03.079
aren't allowed to learn how to read, to then going
821
00:49:03.119 --> 00:49:07.159
into you know, the end of the Civil War and
822
00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:12.880
being given very little resources to build a life fresh
823
00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:18.880
out of slavery, and then all of the tumultuous times
824
00:49:18.920 --> 00:49:22.239
of leading up to the Civil Rights movement, and then
825
00:49:22.280 --> 00:49:25.280
even in integration when I'm speaking of education, look at
826
00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:29.199
what's going on with black students in the public school system,
827
00:49:29.280 --> 00:49:31.960
you know, more likely to be suspended, more likely to
828
00:49:32.039 --> 00:49:37.719
be labeled, more likely to be expelled from school. Slavery,
829
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:40.960
It goes back to slavery. I mean, there really isn't
830
00:49:41.039 --> 00:49:43.719
and that it is very true that there really isn't
831
00:49:43.760 --> 00:49:46.480
a major issue that I can think of that we're
832
00:49:46.480 --> 00:49:51.079
currently dealing with that I can't trace that through line
833
00:49:51.119 --> 00:49:54.519
back and say where did this come from? You know,
834
00:49:54.639 --> 00:49:57.599
police brutality, you have the predecessor of that was the
835
00:49:57.639 --> 00:50:00.920
slave patrols. Like, I just can't think of an issue
836
00:50:01.119 --> 00:50:04.239
even in fashion. You know, people think that fashion is
837
00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:07.400
just so, you know, so surface level, but you know,
838
00:50:07.519 --> 00:50:12.159
fashion is such a powerful field. And even in fashion,
839
00:50:12.320 --> 00:50:15.000
you know, there was a thing called negro cloth, which
840
00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:18.239
is what they made the clothes of enslaved people from,
841
00:50:18.440 --> 00:50:20.880
you know, because they wanted to keep that as cheap
842
00:50:20.920 --> 00:50:25.440
as possible, So that was negro cloth. And then you know,
843
00:50:25.639 --> 00:50:28.840
from that, it's like what you were allowed to wear.
844
00:50:28.960 --> 00:50:31.159
You had to have your head, your head covered and
845
00:50:31.199 --> 00:50:33.320
you know in the head wrap and stuff, you had
846
00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:37.480
to you know, present yourself in a certain way, even
847
00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:40.440
as an enslaved person. Well, I can trace that to
848
00:50:40.480 --> 00:50:43.159
what's going on in workplaces now where black women are
849
00:50:43.199 --> 00:50:45.440
being told black women and men, we can't wear our
850
00:50:45.519 --> 00:50:49.480
natural hair to work. You know, we can't look a
851
00:50:49.480 --> 00:50:51.800
certain way. They don't want you to have your nails,
852
00:50:51.960 --> 00:50:54.440
you know, done in a certain way. It needs to
853
00:50:54.480 --> 00:50:57.840
be classy. But who defines classy.
854
00:50:57.639 --> 00:50:59.840
Right, who decide? Who decides what that is?
855
00:51:00.719 --> 00:51:03.960
Goes back to slavery though there you go, who defines
856
00:51:04.039 --> 00:51:06.559
what a person shouldn't look like or shouldn't look like?
857
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:09.840
And so I mean that really is true. There is
858
00:51:09.920 --> 00:51:12.719
no issue that I can think of that does not
859
00:51:12.760 --> 00:51:15.239
have its roots in slavery. And that's because this country
860
00:51:15.239 --> 00:51:19.519
has never properly dealt with the sin of slavery, and
861
00:51:19.760 --> 00:51:23.920
still that is confronted and acknowledged, and there is some
862
00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:29.480
type of there is some type of attempt to heal
863
00:51:29.880 --> 00:51:34.320
as a country and to rectify as a country. We're
864
00:51:34.360 --> 00:51:36.280
going to continue dealing with these issues.
865
00:51:36.840 --> 00:51:39.800
See see now you're just preaching. Now you're just preaching.
866
00:51:40.519 --> 00:51:43.119
So I got to find out if I can get
867
00:51:43.199 --> 00:51:45.800
you back on to talk about those issues too. I mean,
868
00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:47.920
you don't have time today, but I mean I would
869
00:51:47.960 --> 00:51:50.679
love to get your thoughts about the kind of I
870
00:51:50.679 --> 00:51:54.320
guess DEI renaissance that is completely fizzled out. Now, what
871
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:57.239
your thoughts are about that? I mean, your thoughts about
872
00:51:57.320 --> 00:52:02.480
how different administrations policarly trying to deal with these issues
873
00:52:02.480 --> 00:52:08.559
that you've mentioned, and how you see the trajectory of
874
00:52:08.559 --> 00:52:12.639
those things being approached or if they're never gonna be resolved.
875
00:52:12.679 --> 00:52:14.320
I mean, I would love to talk to you about
876
00:52:15.079 --> 00:52:19.039
how funding and the money is distributed. I did a
877
00:52:19.039 --> 00:52:22.880
lot of work looking at how back in the Biden administration,
878
00:52:22.920 --> 00:52:26.119
when they were having those grants made available, how is
879
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:29.360
that money getting to the communities, to the cities that
880
00:52:29.440 --> 00:52:31.400
need them. A lot of times they were held up
881
00:52:31.400 --> 00:52:35.320
at the state level. And we're from the South, so
882
00:52:35.440 --> 00:52:39.239
our governors aren't the same as other people's governors, and
883
00:52:39.280 --> 00:52:42.440
so they kept that money state level, they didn't actually
884
00:52:42.480 --> 00:52:44.239
get it down to where it needed to go. And
885
00:52:44.280 --> 00:52:47.760
so man, yeah, I forgot, I forgot. I was talking
886
00:52:47.800 --> 00:52:50.079
to a different American history scholar. I forgot about that.
887
00:52:50.119 --> 00:52:52.079
So I should have so many things to talk about,
888
00:52:52.400 --> 00:52:53.440
I know, I mean.
889
00:52:53.480 --> 00:52:57.239
And again, there are so many different conversations that have
890
00:52:57.360 --> 00:53:00.599
not been had. There's so much information that's still yet
891
00:53:00.639 --> 00:53:05.000
to be uncovered. And again that's what excites me about
892
00:53:05.039 --> 00:53:07.800
this work. And that's something that we I feel like,
893
00:53:07.840 --> 00:53:11.159
we're all storytellers in our own right. You know, it
894
00:53:11.199 --> 00:53:14.039
doesn't necessarily have to be oh, you know you have
895
00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:18.119
professional writer after your name. No, we're all storytellers, especially
896
00:53:18.119 --> 00:53:19.639
those of us that are in the black community, because
897
00:53:19.639 --> 00:53:21.719
we all have a story to tell, and we all
898
00:53:21.760 --> 00:53:24.280
have a story that somebody has told us. Because oral
899
00:53:24.440 --> 00:53:28.800
history is a cornerstone of our culture and always has been,
900
00:53:28.920 --> 00:53:34.320
going back to our ancestral villages, And so how can
901
00:53:34.360 --> 00:53:37.119
we preserve those stories? How can we make sure we're
902
00:53:37.119 --> 00:53:40.559
telling each other and telling our children and their children
903
00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:45.360
those stories, and how can we use those stories and
904
00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:50.119
strategize around them to push for progress and the greater
905
00:53:50.199 --> 00:53:53.920
good of our communities. Because stories are a powerful thing,
906
00:53:54.360 --> 00:53:57.280
and I think people underestimate sometimes the power of a
907
00:53:57.320 --> 00:53:57.920
good story.
908
00:53:58.599 --> 00:54:02.000
Absolutely absolutely. And so before we go, I need you
909
00:54:02.280 --> 00:54:06.280
to leave us with some hope and something to uplift us.
910
00:54:06.280 --> 00:54:08.639
And so, as you were doing this work to prepare
911
00:54:08.639 --> 00:54:12.159
this podcast series, what were some of the things that
912
00:54:12.199 --> 00:54:14.519
you experienced, the people that you've met, the things that
913
00:54:14.599 --> 00:54:19.760
you've seen that give you hope that a better day
914
00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:24.480
is possible for this area, for cancer alleys all around
915
00:54:24.519 --> 00:54:25.280
the world.
916
00:54:25.119 --> 00:54:27.119
There's a lot of hope. Not only is a better
917
00:54:27.199 --> 00:54:31.039
day possible, a better day is here. I'm a black
918
00:54:31.079 --> 00:54:36.159
woman in North Carolina living in the country. I didn't
919
00:54:36.199 --> 00:54:39.239
wake up this morning with chains on my wrists. I
920
00:54:39.280 --> 00:54:42.440
didn't wake up this morning on a plantation. I didn't
921
00:54:42.440 --> 00:54:44.519
wake up this morning and have to go out and
922
00:54:44.559 --> 00:54:47.920
pick cotton. I didn't wake up this morning and have
923
00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:50.360
to worry about whether a loved one was sold away.
924
00:54:52.159 --> 00:54:53.400
So a better day is here.
925
00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:58.760
It's already here, Yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am.
926
00:54:59.039 --> 00:55:03.199
Better days are absolutely possible. One thing that really inspires me,
927
00:55:03.599 --> 00:55:06.960
especially with what's going on in Cancer Alley, what's going
928
00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:10.039
on here in North Carolina in the environmental justice space,
929
00:55:10.719 --> 00:55:14.119
is that there are winds that are happening in Cancer Alley.
930
00:55:14.280 --> 00:55:17.360
There were and one of the people that I interviewed
931
00:55:17.360 --> 00:55:22.079
for the season, Miss Leonora Golbert. She's a genealogist, and
932
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:28.960
she discovered the locations of remains of enslaved people in
933
00:55:29.000 --> 00:55:31.360
an area where they were trying to build a new plant.
934
00:55:32.079 --> 00:55:35.039
And so they were able to get that plant, they
935
00:55:35.039 --> 00:55:38.639
were able to stop, you know, stop the process of
936
00:55:38.679 --> 00:55:42.599
that plant being built because they found remains on that land.
937
00:55:44.119 --> 00:55:47.199
And so there are there are still winds that are happening.
938
00:55:47.239 --> 00:55:50.119
There are wins that are that are literally happening every
939
00:55:50.159 --> 00:55:52.920
single day. Even as I was talking about with the
940
00:55:52.960 --> 00:55:55.239
plant for most of plastics they were trying to build.
941
00:55:55.280 --> 00:55:57.960
I believe it it was the biggest plastics plant in
942
00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:01.239
North America, or it might even further than North America.
943
00:56:01.280 --> 00:56:05.000
But the community stopped that. They stopped it. You know,
944
00:56:05.199 --> 00:56:09.239
there are lawsuits being filed, there is still work being
945
00:56:09.320 --> 00:56:13.159
done on the community level, and you know, there are
946
00:56:13.199 --> 00:56:15.840
still babies being born in Cancer alley, there are still
947
00:56:15.920 --> 00:56:19.480
elders sitting on porches, you know, reading and talking to
948
00:56:19.519 --> 00:56:21.719
folk and waving the folk as they wave by. And
949
00:56:21.760 --> 00:56:25.199
so I find hoping that you know, there is still hope,
950
00:56:25.239 --> 00:56:29.119
because today, in twenty twenty six, I have more opportunity
951
00:56:29.159 --> 00:56:31.639
as a black woman than I would have ever had
952
00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:34.800
in this country at another time. You know, my generation,
953
00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:38.000
I have more opportunity than my mom had, than my
954
00:56:38.079 --> 00:56:41.960
grandmother had. And so I find hoping that I find
955
00:56:42.039 --> 00:56:47.400
hope in the understanding that as long as we are
956
00:56:47.480 --> 00:56:54.719
still remaining who we are as a people, as a community,
957
00:56:55.360 --> 00:57:01.119
and also you know, our allies too, as long as
958
00:57:01.159 --> 00:57:03.920
we were remaining who we are and we are remaining
959
00:57:04.480 --> 00:57:09.400
true to those things that make up our culture, there
960
00:57:09.480 --> 00:57:11.760
is always hope. I mean, there was hope in the
961
00:57:11.800 --> 00:57:14.239
belly of the slave ships, I imagine, and we are
962
00:57:14.280 --> 00:57:18.960
living that hope. We are living embodiments of that hope.
963
00:57:18.960 --> 00:57:21.079
And we wouldn't be here if somebody wouldn't have had,
964
00:57:21.480 --> 00:57:23.679
you know, the courage and the hope to still keep
965
00:57:23.719 --> 00:57:27.440
getting up every day and making it through that middle passage,
966
00:57:27.519 --> 00:57:30.800
making it past that auction block. So again everything goes
967
00:57:30.840 --> 00:57:33.559
back to slavery. But we can also see, just like
968
00:57:33.719 --> 00:57:35.840
a lot, you know, we can trace the bad things
969
00:57:35.880 --> 00:57:41.159
back to slavery. We can also see how our communities
970
00:57:41.239 --> 00:57:46.480
have remained who we are despite slavery, despite you know,
971
00:57:46.679 --> 00:57:50.719
Jim Crow, despite everything going on today, we have not
972
00:57:50.880 --> 00:57:53.440
lost sight of who we are as a community. And
973
00:57:53.519 --> 00:57:56.559
as long as we keep that, it's always going to
974
00:57:56.639 --> 00:57:57.719
be better days ahead.
975
00:57:58.000 --> 00:58:01.400
Amen to that. Look, we're gonna end right We're going
976
00:58:01.440 --> 00:58:03.400
to end it right there. That's the perfect place to
977
00:58:03.480 --> 00:58:08.000
end this conversation, ladies and gentlemen. Her name is Jehai Avery.
978
00:58:08.159 --> 00:58:12.679
She is the host of The Corridor, a podcast about
979
00:58:12.960 --> 00:58:18.400
cancer ALI distributed produced by Threshold coming out. I think
980
00:58:18.480 --> 00:58:21.280
May twelfth is the date I saw. I need all
981
00:58:21.320 --> 00:58:23.440
of you to listen to it. It's going to be
982
00:58:23.480 --> 00:58:27.679
an amazing series. She spent years, two and a half years,
983
00:58:27.679 --> 00:58:31.960
to be exact, developing it for us for our enjoyment.
984
00:58:32.039 --> 00:58:35.039
And so, Jahai, thank you so much for being on
985
00:58:35.079 --> 00:58:38.559
the podcast with me today. I really really appreciate your candor,
986
00:58:39.000 --> 00:58:42.559
the conversation and all that you brought to the episode.
987
00:58:42.880 --> 00:58:45.119
Thank you so much for having me. This is wonderful
988
00:58:45.159 --> 00:58:48.719
talking about this, and thank you for the thoughtful conversation.
989
00:58:49.039 --> 00:58:53.559
I'm always down to talk about Black history, black culture,
990
00:58:54.239 --> 00:58:57.400
and the work that I'm trying to do to uplift
991
00:58:57.480 --> 00:59:01.400
and advance the culture, and so I'm very grateful for
992
00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:05.519
the opportunity to talk about this, especially being that we
993
00:59:05.599 --> 00:59:07.880
are living in a time where we really really have
994
00:59:07.960 --> 00:59:10.199
to be tapped in. We got to be all the
995
00:59:10.199 --> 00:59:13.079
way tapped in, and we learned that from the ancestors,
996
00:59:13.119 --> 00:59:16.119
so stay tapped in absolutely, and.
997
00:59:16.079 --> 00:59:18.440
With that, this has been another episode of the Environmental
998
00:59:18.559 --> 00:59:21.679
Justice Lab, where we are for the people and the planet.
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00:59:22.280 --> 00:59:23.599
We will see you next time.