When concerns about a pipeline were dismissed by regulators, a rural black enclave went to court — and won.
New York Times Opinion Jan. 23, 2020 By Jeff Gleason, the executive director of the Southern Environmental Law Center.
How we treat the story and future of Union Hill, and other communities like it, will define our history.
In the years following the Civil War, freedmen and freedwomen founded a community close to the Virginia plantations where they had been enslaved. The settlers of Union Hill in Buckingham County, Va., passed down this land over generations to today’s descendants, who are now at the center of a fight to stop a proposed multibillion dollar energy project.
While Union Hill may represent the remarkable history of resilience from our country’s unjust beginnings, it also reveals the country’s continuing imbalance of power and the decisions about whose histories we choose to honor.
Read more at New York Times Opinion Jan. 23, 2020