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LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Duke University graduate student Cameron Oglesby issues a challenge to youth.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Saturday’s commemoration of the 40th Anniverary of the 1982 PCB protests is made possible through the efforts of people from Warren County, the faith community, colleges, universities and other organizations.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Dollie Burwell, holding microphone, leads participants in the songs and chants of the 1982 PCB protests as the group leaves the grounds of Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church to follow the route taken by protestors years ago.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis gives a Prayer of Repentance, Reconciliation and Dedication to the Environmental Justice Movement.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
The Rev. Dr. Edgardo Colon-Emeric, dean of the Duke Divinity School, gives the keynote address.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Commemorative march participants included people of all ages.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Saturday’s commemoration of the 40th Anniverary of the 1982 PCB protests is made possible through the efforts of people from Warren County, the faith community, colleges, universities and other organizations.
Saturday events marked the 40th Anniversary commemoration of the 1982 PCB protests, which are now recognized as the beginning of the environmental justice movement.
Elected officials, representatives of colleges and universities, members of the clergy, many of the people who marched in 1982, their families, and other area residents gathered on the grounds of Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church in Afton to reflect on the protests and Warren County’s role in history.
While the event marked a celebration of what a united community could achieve, multiple speakers urged their audience to remember that being good stewards of God’s environment did not end in 1982 or on Saturday, but, instead will continue for generations to come.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Dollie Burwell, holding microphone, leads participants in the songs and chants of the 1982 PCB protests as the group leaves the grounds of Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church to follow the route taken by protestors years ago.
Construction of the PCB landfill followed years of public outcry, resistance and legal actions that came after transformer oil contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) was illegally sprayed in Warren and 13 other counties in 1978.
The state of North Carolina and the federal Environmental Protection Agency chose Warren County for the PCB landfill, which they claimed was safe and would not leak.
In 1982, as trucks began hauling in 10,000 loads of contaminated soil from more than 200 miles of North Carolina roadways, protestors from Warren County, supporters of their cause and civil rights activists marched and lay down in front of the trucks. More than 500 arrests were made during about a six-week period, and what is now known as the environmental justice movement was born.
On Saturday, the Rev. Carson Jones, pastor of Coley Springs, said that churches played an important role in the protests, not only because many pastors and their congregations participated, but also because protestors met at Coley Springs for prayer and reflection before marching down Parktown Road, turning onto Limertown Road and toward the landfill. Jones reflected on the sight of trucks moving down Limertown Road to the nearby landfill site.
The Rev. William Kearney of Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church and the Warren County Environmental Action Team, recalled that when he was growing up, the Limertown Road area was known as Kearneytown, an area where the Kearney family has lived since the 1800s.
In past activities related to the commemoration, Kearney described the area with fond memories of times spent with families and friends. The PCB landfill would forever impact the community and the lives of the Kearneys and other people living nearby. However, the landfill would not be the final impression the world would have of the Afton area or Warren County. Instead, the people of the community and others who joined them created a lasting image of resolve which grew into the birth of the environmental justice movement.
That image remains strong today. A banner reading, “We birthed the movement,” held a prominent place during the commemoration ceremony.
During the opening prayer, the Rev. Cathy Alston-Kearney, pastor of Oak Chapel AME Church in Warrenton, honored those involved in the 1982 protests who have passed on and prayed for young people to carry a concern for the environment into the future.
The Rev. Dr. Mark W. Wethington, convener of Warren Ministries United, noted that in a predominantly black, indigenous and poor county, people of all races and ethnicities joined together to birth what would become the environmental justice movement. He also noted that the term “environmental racism” was coined by the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis, who was among the protestors arrested.
“We gather to recognize those who participated and pass the torch to the younger generation,” Wethington said.
He said that human beings have harmed God’s creation in many ways, from pollution to deforestation.
Beth B. Wethington, also of Warren Ministries United, reflected on problems that face the world, including poverty, destruction of habitat, a recurring hole in the ozone layer and others.
“We are confronted with a crisis in the destruction of God’s creation,” she said.
Wethington described the harm that people have caused as a misjudgment of God’s charge in the book of Genesis to take care of the environment.
The Rev. Carson Jones described the connection between environmental and social justice while urging the wise use of environmental resources.
“We must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs,” he said. “We must pledge to strive for a global sense of community to strive for social, ecological and environmental justice.”
Dr. Cosmos George, president of the Warren County NAACP, read Psalm 24, with its reference to the earth belonging to and being created by God. Hannah Jeffries provided a blessing of the earth, the sky, the air and the water.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
The Rev. Dr. Edgardo Colon-Emeric, dean of the Duke Divinity School, gives the keynote address.
Keynote speaker the Rev. Dr. Edgardo Colon-Emeric, dean of the Duke Divinity School, reflected on the role of the church in the birth of the environmental justice movement and the ongoing connection between faith and being good stewards of the environment.
“Calling upon the name of the Lord is incompatible with the poisoning of the earth,” he said. “Sacrificing certain ZIP codes (and areas) for the betterment of a few is blasphemous.”
Colon-Emeric made the biblical reference to the balm in Gilead that will heal if peoples work together.
“The environmental justice movement is an ecumenical movement,” he said. “The ‘we’ in ‘We Birthed the Movement’ is an ecumenical ‘we.’”
Colon-Emeric described the 40th Anniversary commemoration as a invitation for all peoples to work together to better the environment and the world. He also referred to the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis’ “Psalms from Prison” as reminding him of the Apostle Paul’s statement that “perseverance produces character and character, hope.”
Colon-Emeric said that there are still people today who will carry the environmental justice movement forward, adding that the movement’s future will be great if it remains connected with the church and remains ecumenical, and its people are characterized by the exuberant hope that Paul describes.
Youth played an important role throughout the commemoration. Among them were participants in the Living and Learning Youth Center’s Environmental Justice & Peace 2022 Summer Camp, who shared their dreams for the future of Warren County. They included more jobs, more opportunities for young people, a higher graduation rate, and a reduction in poverty, among others. The camp participants expressed the hope that the commemoration would challenge those attending to “make change happen.”
Music for the ceremony was provided by the Coley Springs Music Ministry.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis gives a Prayer of Repentance, Reconciliation and Dedication to the Environmental Justice Movement.
As those attending joined hands, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis gave a prayer of repentance, reconciliation and dedication to the environmental justice movement. He described the image that he saw, of people of various racial and ethnic backgrounds joining hands — as a picture of Heaven.
The commemoration ceremony concluded with a ceremonial passing of the symbol of a Sankofa bird, which is pictured with its feet facing forward while its head is turned back. Event organizers selected the Sankofa symbol as a representation of the need to reconcile the past, whether good or bad, and move forward utilizing lessons from the past for guidance.
Participating in the ceremony were participants in the 1982 protests, including Dolie Burwell and Wayne Moseley, Jenny Labalme, a journalist and photographer who took photographs of the protests while a student at Duke University, and others, along with a number of students.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Duke University graduate student Cameron Oglesby issues a challenge to youth.
Accepting the Sankofa bird on behalf of the youth was Duke University graduate student Cameron Oglesby, who said that the sense of hope evident during the commemoration inspired her to be hopeful.
She said that the young people attending the event and many others have accepted a call to action to remember past events, like the PCB protests, and allow them to inspire action today and in the future.
Oglesby described a family-like connection between the people who birthed the environmental justice movement and the youth who are leading new environmental movements today. She charged the youth to learn from the past.
“We young people accept the work with the hope that elders will hold space with us,” Oglesby said.
LUCI WELDON/The Warren Record
Commemorative march participants included people of all ages.
Following the ceremony, youth of all ages joined those involved in the 1982 protests for a commemorative march along the route that protestors took 40 years ago. The songs and chants of the protests filled the air once again as one generation shared their memories of the 1982 events with another, and today’s youth were challenged to take up the call to be good stewards of the environment.
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