Despite deep histories of chemical and industrial pollution, government infrastructural disinvestment, and the growing disparate impact of the climate crisis in the U.S. South, stories of environmental justice in the region have gone and continue to go under-represented in mainstream media, development of environmental policy, and larger environmental movements.

Our solution, Story Mapping the South, is a storytelling series that attempts to reduce the informational silos that exist within environmental movements, highlighting the often missing wisdoms of Southern advocates, ancestors, and movement building efforts. The project will work with organizations across the U.S. South to develop a series of oral history story maps that combine oral history video, in-depth written history documentation, and geospatial visualization to build educational tools about environmental justice in the region.

Story Mapping the South was born from the understanding that our solutions are stronger together, that knowing our past is a necessary path toward building a better future, and that storytelling is a powerful tool to inform, educate, and unite around common causes.