Written by:
Diarra McCormick
Eight years ago, I attended Robert Russa Moton Elementary School. I was in the third grade. One day I had a terrible stomachache during library class. My stomach churned, and it felt like my intestines were balling up to make a fist. This was one Monday I didn’t feel like reading. As the weeks passed, I had a series of stomachaches on Mondays. I always wondered why my stomach would go into turmoil on Mondays. It really scared me.
Three years later, all kinds of toxins were discovered by workers who were trying to fix the school’s pipes under the ground. Some were known to cause cancer. Yes, Moton was built on toxic waste. After the state’s ecologists performed many tests on the soil, it was confirmed that that area used to be a landfill—the Agriculture St. Landfill to be exact. All people living in the Press Park and Gordon Plaza areas were informed that their homes were built on toxic waste. The community was outraged.
Moton had to close down because of the toxins. My siblings and I had to go to a new school. During this whole ordeal, I finally made the connection. In third grade at Moton, we had to go to the library every Monday for reading. The library was where most of the toxins were found. That’s why I had tormenting stomachaches.
I got flashbacks to the 3rd grade Monday illness from watching this film called Slavery’s Buried Past. In this film, bones were found by workers digging to build a new federal building in New York City. The bones were those of African slaves. This finding proved that there was slavery in the North, not just the South. Africans from all over poured into Manhattan and wanted a ceremony for their ancestors. But the Caucasian people still wanted their building. The buried Africans were from Ghana and lived there about 300 years ago. One of the burial plots, Burial 101, had a symbol that resembled a heart. The lead archaeologist, Michael Blakey, had a hunch that it was not really a heart though. He discovered through research that it was an African symbol of resistance.
The Agriculture Street Landfill community faced a different kind of buried past but used a similar approach of resistance when the buried evil was discovered. When the toxins were discovered, members immediately contacted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but they wouldn’t listen. Instead they accused us of knowing that our homes were built on toxic waste. We tried to involve the media but were unsuccessful. So we decided to fight back like the Africans who came to New York after the burial ground was discovered. These Africans wanted to save their ancestors’ bones and demanded a ceremony for them.
We protested all over the city. We held meetings in the community center every Thursday and requested Sen. William Jefferson to be there. He never showed. He would always send representatives. Since he never came to New Orleans, we took a trip to Washington, D. C. to discuss the matter in person. We went to Congress and talked to the senators about our situation. We had a rally. We got support from passersby on the street who read our signs. It all went well, but we still did not get justice.
Finally, on the news one Sunday night, a representative from the EPA stated that instead of buying us out or giving us money to move, they were going to dig two feet into the ground and put clean soil on top. Everyone was furious. We felt it made more sense to move us off of the toxic ground. Despite our continued protests, they started digging in Press Park about a month after the announcement.
As residents of Gordon Park Plaza, we decided to stand up to the EPA and to not let them dig on our property. So far, the EPA has not started digging yet. But we are not going out without a fight. My family and I managed to move. We hated to leave our neighborhood, but it looked like a disgrace. When I see Press Park, it makes me think of the men digging in New York when they found the bones. But moving did not change us. We still attended the meetings on Thursdays. We still protest with them. We are still helping the others with the struggle. Just as the Africans today returned to reclaim their ancestors’ bones in New York, my family has remained part of the struggle. We still have that heart, that sign of resistance.