The Time Republicans Helped Build an All-Black Town Called 'Soul City'
November 16, 2015 12:25 PM Subscribe
Brentin Mock explores the rise and fall of Soul City, a planned city in rural Warren County, North Carolina founded by civil rights veteran Floyd McKissick and funded by the Nixon administration, and how Soul City's decline propelled the environmental justice movement.
Tangentially related to this post, but if you're ever in Warren County, stop by Warren FoodWorks. It is an amazing place run by amazing people.
posted by ND¢ at 1:00 PM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by ND¢ at 1:00 PM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have, and have had, relatives near there.
Two of them who died young regularly drove a stretch of dirt road that, it later turned out, had been used by tank truck drivers to drain their PCB loads rather than pay for the landfill (ironically, that's where the PCBs had been dumped originally, along state roads: "the landfill operation near Afton, where contaminated dirt scraped from 240 miles of rural road shoulders is being dumped...."
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/10/us/carolinians-see-governor-in-pcb-landfill-dispute.html
http://www.warrencountync.com/_fileuploads/forms/467_2006%20community%20health%20assessment.pdf
"Warren County's cancer rate for all cancers is higher than the state rate with the exception for lung cancer."
PCBs, by the way, are one of the persistent toxic waste byproducts of the pulp paper mills. Lots in NC.
When I was a youngster in NC -- in the first half of the last century of the previous millenium -- they sold the excess stuff (what didn't go into electrical transformers) by soaking it into sawdust (making it purple) and selling it off in 55 gallon cardboard drums to be used to sprinkle on floors as a dust collector, then swept up and thrown out. It left the linoleum tiles nice and shiny. All sorts of schools and public buildings used the stuff, anywhere a push broom would fit in a hallway.
posted by hank at 1:08 PM on November 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
Two of them who died young regularly drove a stretch of dirt road that, it later turned out, had been used by tank truck drivers to drain their PCB loads rather than pay for the landfill (ironically, that's where the PCBs had been dumped originally, along state roads: "the landfill operation near Afton, where contaminated dirt scraped from 240 miles of rural road shoulders is being dumped...."
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/10/us/carolinians-see-governor-in-pcb-landfill-dispute.html
http://www.warrencountync.com/_fileuploads/forms/467_2006%20community%20health%20assessment.pdf
"Warren County's cancer rate for all cancers is higher than the state rate with the exception for lung cancer."
PCBs, by the way, are one of the persistent toxic waste byproducts of the pulp paper mills. Lots in NC.
When I was a youngster in NC -- in the first half of the last century of the previous millenium -- they sold the excess stuff (what didn't go into electrical transformers) by soaking it into sawdust (making it purple) and selling it off in 55 gallon cardboard drums to be used to sprinkle on floors as a dust collector, then swept up and thrown out. It left the linoleum tiles nice and shiny. All sorts of schools and public buildings used the stuff, anywhere a push broom would fit in a hallway.
posted by hank at 1:08 PM on November 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
Brentin Mock explores the rise and fall of Soul City,
Well that's kind of eponysterical, isn't it?
posted by Naberius at 1:13 PM on November 16, 2015
Well that's kind of eponysterical, isn't it?
posted by Naberius at 1:13 PM on November 16, 2015
The Time Republicans exist. They travel to the future, see how their shitty policies destroy everything, return and enact them anyway because they don't care.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:50 PM on November 16, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:50 PM on November 16, 2015 [12 favorites]
Oh man it is super depressing that that very plot of land ended up becoming a prison housing more people than ever lived in the town. So terrible.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 1:53 PM on November 16, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 1:53 PM on November 16, 2015 [8 favorites]
That was a super interesting article. Thanks for posting it!
posted by latkes at 7:21 AM on November 17, 2015
posted by latkes at 7:21 AM on November 17, 2015
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Not to defend or decry prior to an in depth reading of the post but many republicans would most certainly help their fellow man (of color) especially if it helps them keep in their place.
posted by sammyo at 12:39 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]