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Dear Mother Jones Reader,

Across the South, the legacy of slavery isn’t just history — it lingers in the air, water, and soil, still impacting communities today.

SELC’s multimedia storytelling series, Plantations to Pollution: Black Communities, Legacy Pollution, and the Path Forward traces the often-unbroken line from plantation slavery to today’s environmental injustices.

EXPLORE PLANTATIONS TO POLLUTION

Through personal stories, historical context, and community collaborations, the series reveals how choices made in our past laid the groundwork for the environmental struggles Black communities in the South face today. Told through an immersive website, documentary video, and SELC's award-winning Broken Ground podcast, this series connects past exploitation to present-day harms — while amplifying the communities and advocates fighting for environmental justice.

Explore the full series and discover some of the stories that demand attention, accountability, and action:

Durham, North Carolina (Hayti District)
Known as a Black Wall Street in the early to mid-20th century, Durham’s Hayti community, founded by freed people from nearby Stagville Plantation, was torn apart by urban renewal and construction of Highway 147 leaving residents dealing with displacement, air pollution, extreme heat conditions, and economic loss.
Bucksport, South Carolina
Ten miles from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Bucksport was founded by formerly enslaved people from Henry Buck’s Tip Top Plantation. The community now faces a proposed interstate threatening homes, farmland, sacred sites, and pressuring Black residents off their ancestors’ land, putting their legacies in jeopardy.
Hampton, Virginia
Once a thriving Black beach, Bay Shore Beach was lost to storms, flooding, and economic pressures, while the nearby “whites only” Buckroe Beach thrived. Today, Black coastal communities still face flooding, rising seas, and systemic inequities.

The Plantations to Pollution multimedia storytelling series also includes the latest season of SELC’s award-winning podcast, Broken Ground.

Join Host Leanna First-Arai as she sits down to talk with descendants of enslaved laborers, career historians, and community members to better understand how the choices made in our past created the present-day challenges that communities face. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

LAUNCH PODCAST

Join SELC staff and a group of talented videographers, photographers, journalists, and creators as they take a deeper look at Plantations to Pollution: Black Communities, Legacy Pollution, and the Path Forward.

Southern Environmental Law Center
120 Garrett St Ste 400, Charlottesville, VA 22902

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