We are in the throes of a cultural reckoning. While that conversation has often felt specific to the United States — and many parts of it are — this is an international reflection process, a deepening of our collective understanding of how white supremacy and racial capitalism have made an indelible mark on our collective conscience, and how oppression has shaped our legal and political institutions.
This last weekend, CIEL staff around the US came together to commemorate Juneteenth in a variety of ways. From our board Vice-Chair, Dianne Dillon-Ridgley sharing stories of her enslaved ancestors who learned of their freedom on Juneteenth, to DC staff joining environmental justice groups in demonstrations, the days provided us an opportunity to reflect on how the climate and racial justice movements are one-in-the-same. Nowhere was this more evident than in Louisiana. Jane Patton, our Senior Campaigner, joined a Juneteenth celebration sponsored by Louisianans on a site that is intended for the construction of a new Formosa plant. Below, she shares with us reflections on the day and the movement in Louisiana.
There have been many times in my life that I thought I knew Louisiana. But every time I look around or talk to more people, I learn something new to me about who we are. Some things are clear: It’s hard to fix your gaze on our community and not see the vestiges of extractive French colonialism in the way the land around the river is still cut into long, narrow strips of land, stretching inland from a sliver of river access. It’s hard to miss the French and Spanish colonial influence in the Catholic churches around which many communities are built, even permeating into our political divisions, called “parishes” only in Louisiana. It’s hard to close your eyes against the lingering imprint of the international conspiracy to kidnap people into industrial servitude known as “slavery,” racialized with indefensible cruelty and widespread depravity, what we call “systemic racism.”
It’s also clear to see that those narrows of strips of land are now overrun with chemical plants, refineries, and plastics producers. Interspersed between and among them, increasingly being crowded out, are towns of the descendants of those formerly enslaved people — families with generations of relationship to the land and each other here.
While Louisiana has a more than 400-year history of extraction and degradation, we also have a more than 400-year history of resistance. The people have always been fighting for our freedom and our safety. This Juneteenth, a gathering of mourning and celebration was held by residents of the River Parishes — that collection of parishes mostly named for Catholic saints that line the Mississippi River in the Industrial Corridor, known more accurately as “Cancer Alley” and recently redubbed as “Death Alley.” The Formosa Plastics Corporation is currently planning to build a 14-plant, 2400-acre edifice to produce plastic products, largely for export, at the expense of local residents’ health and well-being.
Dubbed the “Sunshine Project” by developers, the project has enjoyed support from parish elected officials and the state government; it’s even slated to receive over $1 billion in local and state tax giveaways to build. But despite that support, the community which would have to be neighbors with this proposed complex is fighting back.
It is well known that the site of the planned Formosa complex used to be a plantation (as, in fact, many of the plants and refineries in Louisiana did). Researchers hired by Formosa revealed many months ago that there are unmarked graves on the site, most likely the final resting place of people kept in bondage and forced labor there. The developers have surrounded the likely location of those graves with chicken wire fences to mark the area, topped with barbed wire to keep people out.
But we in the community feel it’s important to honor our dead, especially in this national and global moment of reckoning with our past and present. RISE St. James, the local group organizing against the plant, planned a small gathering on Juneteenth, June 19th, to commemorate the site and the end of slavery. In the days leading up to the event, Formosa filed several injunctions, but local judges supported our need to mourn.
Juneteenth has been significant in Louisiana and nationwide for decades, with many local celebrations and gatherings held to commemorate the date. Yet with provisions of the 13th amendment still allowing for the forced labor of those imprisoned for a crime, and the construction of refineries and plants in the last 100 years in Louisiana mirroring the geography of plantations, those of us in the US South still have reason to fight and organize against the systemic racism that means both of those burdens are still largely carried by Black and brown people. This year, the Movement for Black Lives organized events nationwide to commemorate the date and to reinforce demands to protect the safety and dignity of Black people.
In St. James, dozens of community members from across South Louisiana gathered on the day with Catholic, Baptist, and non-denominational faith leaders. We consecrated the graves and honored our ancestors buried there by singing and raising up hope together for safety and for victory.
Despite Formosa’s attempt to keep leaders off the property and to fence off the ancestors from us, we know that morality is on our side and that our movement against all forces of exploitation and extraction has local, national, and international support like never before. “I believe God is with us!” RISE St. James leader Sharon Lavigne reflected joyfully during a repast after the ceremony. “I believe we’re going to win.”
Local leaders are calling for your support to demand that Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards stop construction on the Formosa Plastics plant, planned to start by the end of this month (June 2020). The St. James Parish Council also has the power to kill the project by rescinding their land-use permit.
By Jane Patton, Senior Campaigner
Originally posted on June 24, 2020