In the 1950s and 60s, North Birmingham became the epicenter of the Birmingham civil rights movement. Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights were based in the Collegeville neighborhood that, together with a handful of other neighborhoods, makeup North Birmingham. In North Birmingham today three out of four school children have asthma and adults who have never smoked a cigarette in their lives are dying of COPD. Something is not right. In the early 1970s, Birmingham’s air pollution was so bad that it became the first place in the country that the emergency powers of the newly enacted Clean Air Act were used. On November 15th, 1971, twenty-three major polluters were forced to stop operations for almost two weeks just to bring pollution levels down to a reasonable level. In Birmingham, the history of the environment and the history of race and class relations are inseparable.

Birmingham is located at the southern terminus of the Appalachian mountain range. The city is nestled in the Jones Valley between two mountains. Because of its geography, thermal inversion layers form when there are excessive amounts of pollution, which trap toxic air in the city. When Birmingham neighborhoods were “redlined” in 1926, most of the city’s African Americans were zoned together with heavy industry into North Birmingham. And this toxic legacy continues today.

North Birmingham is now home to heavy industry and economically impoverished African American residents. With the ABC Coke (owned by Drummond Coal) and Walter Coke/ERP plants in North Birmingham and the neighboring City of Tarrant—among the largest producers of coke in the world—its residents are still disproportionately exposed to toxins in the air, soil, and water. North Birmingham’s K-8 school, for instance, is within a mile radius of the plants.

Concerned residents and their allies have not been idle, however. For decades, North Birmingham residents have been trying to clean up the polluted air and soil that’s slowly poisoning them and their children to death and suppressing academic performance and quality of life. But when they try, they are told that they have no proof of their incapacitating and deadly health problems are caused by the emission-spewing coal plants next door. Eventually, they got the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency, who conducted a series of preliminary tests that indicated contamination levels that could be associated with poor public health. They found levels of arsenic, lead, and benzo(a)pyrene above acceptable levels in 400 properties. The EPA declared the area the 35th Avenue Superfund Site, but with so many Superfund sites across the country, only those on the National Priorities List tend to get the attention and funds necessary for a successful clean-up.

During a campaign to both expand the 35th Avenue Superfund site to include the areas around the Drummond Coal site in Tarrant and add the 35th Avenue site to the National Priorities List, things got ugly. In light of what came to light during a federal trial that resulted in at least three convictions for bribery and corruption, we now know that coal industry agents paid government, community, and political leaders to block the campaign to clean up North Birmingham. This included obstructing scientific research, spreading misinformation, and persuading residents that the NPL listing would reduce property values. Industry and their allies tried to buy their way into polluting with impunity. Even though a Drummond Coal executive, one of their top lawyers, and an elected state representative are now sentenced to federal prison, the clean-up effort remains minimal and the neighborhood residents are still facing debilitating health issues.

So the People's Justice Academy is now working with residents, volunteers, and active citizens to become witnesses through community health science. With a rigorous, well-designed health census study and mapping project, we can identify possible correlations between residents’ health problems and pollution from the coal plants. Until now, powerful groups and powerful individuals have profited by keeping these residents’ suffering invisible. We believe it is about time to make ourselves witnesses by making visible what industry has tried to hide. And we plan to do it with clipboards, health surveys, GIS devices, and volunteers from local high schools, HBCUs, churches, and other concerned citizen groups. We believe it is time to turn neighbor into a verb and research into testimony. It is time to work against the toxic history of pollution and race in North Birmingham through citizen-driven science that matters.