EJOHP

What is the EJ Oral History Project?

The EJ Oral History Project is a multi-dimensional storytelling program that aims to elevate and uplift the personal experiences and narratives of historically underserved populations with regard to environmental justice. This project hopes to document a history of environmental experiences in the American South, injustices and place-based pleasures, through communal storytelling, adding a humanist and documentary perspective on environmental issues while advocating for just, equitable, and anti-racist solutions.

What is Environmental Justice? Is it just the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people” in “the enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies”?

This project argues environmental justice extends beyond pollution exposure and equal treatment to include land-based joy, and histories and modernities grounded in ancestral connections to nature, place, and space. Environmental Justice is a culture as much as a movement. It is an acknowledgment of past wrongs, present protest, and future well-being.

The Environmental Justice Movement is an under-covered and under-recognized arm of the Civil Rights Movement. Where oral historians have been collecting stories from the champions of the Civil Rights Movement for decades, the Environmental Justice Movement has stewed on the back burner, a forgotten memory in academic spaces and traditional storytelling.

This project uses the tradition of oral history to re-center environmental joy, environmental harm, and environmental justice in mainstream media conversations. In connection with community partners representing the mothers and fathers of the Environmental Justice Movement as well as the next generation of movement leaders, this collection is an attempt to bring the under-covered, under-reported, and under-resourced to the forefront.

Community Partners

Community partnership and community-ownership represent the core of the EJ Oral History Project ethic. We are extremely grateful for the time and insights our partners have given us as well as the faith they place in us to document, archive, and showcase their stories.

The Rural Beacon Initiative

The Rural Beacon Initiative (RBI) is a BIPOC-led social enterprise that leverages deployed projects to increase community ownership in the emerging supply chains of clean energy and regenerative agriculture. RBI’s mission is to ensure that BIPOC communities—particularly BIPOC communities in the Southeast—are at the forefront of a just transition that deploys projects which not only lower emissions and electrify communities but create real economic opportunities for those that have too long been siloed from this conversation.

The EJOHP has worked with RBI founder, William Barber III, to collect oral histories and develop articles about their organizations first deployed project, the Free Union Farms Hub, and the legacy of the Piney Woods Free Union community in Jamesville, North Carolina.

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The North Carolina Black Alliance

The North Carolina Black Alliance (NCBA) is working toward state-level systemic change by strengthening the network of elected officials representing communities of color throughout the state and collaborating with progressive, grassroots networks on intersecting issues.  These issues range from voting rights, gerrymandering, criminal justice reform, health and wellness, economic development to education. The North Carolina Black Alliance is committed to advocating for environmental justice, ensuring that water and air quality in Black communities is not contaminated, and eliminating inequalities in the location of environmentally hazardous facilities and enterprises.

The EJOHP is a recipient of NCBA’s 2022 Environmental Justice mini-grant and has worked with Environmental Justice programming team leaders La’Meshia Whittington and Jovita Lee to strategize on best engagement practices for our oral history, journalism, and podcast components.

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The Warren County Environmental Action Team

The Warren County Environmental Action Team (WCEAT) is a network of organizations & individuals working together to record, celebrate, and share Warren County's environmental justice legacy, natural resources, and diverse culture.

The EAT engages with other community leaders on various initiatives, including:

  • Offering environmental justice-focused tours of Warren County
  • ​Supporting local farms and community gardens
  • Connecting Warren County with ongoing environmental justice movements
  • Building community among residents and grassroots organizers in Warren County

The EJOHP worked with WCEAT on the 40th anniversary of Environmental Justice celebrations and has connected with several network members for oral history guidance and direction.

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The Great Dismal Swamp Stakeholder Collaborative

New!

Details coming soon.

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International Farmers and Ranchers

New!

Details coming soon.

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Friends of Buckingham

Friends of Buckingham is a group of of Buckingham County citizens united to work with county leaders to attract economic investment opportunities that benefit all residents, and that contribute to a sustainable healthy environment. They are dedicated to celebrating their county’s diverse cultural heritage, rural lifestyle, and to protecting natural resources and last, remaining, wild places.

Towards that end, they are committed to protecting the health and environment from any outside interests that seek to exploit their natural resources, such as the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP, formerly known as the Dominion Southeast Reliability Project).

The EJOHP partnered with Friends of Buckingham to collect a mini-collection of oral histories on the civil disobedience that took place in response to the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline from 2013-2020.

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The Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice

The Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (former the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise) was created by Catherine Coleman Flowers to reduce health and economic disparities and improve access to clean air, water, and soil in marginalized rural communities by influencing policy, inspiring innovation, catalyzing relevant research, and amplifying the voices of community leaders, all within the context of a changing climate.

CREEJ, as a part of a longstanding partnership with Duke University, was one of the original project partners and grant applicants in 2021.

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INSTITUTIONAL

PARTNERS

The EJOHP seeks to utilize institutional powers and resources to elevate the voices and narratives of historically disinvested communities. To that end, we appreciate the support of our institutional sponsors: university partners who have lent us their funding, expertise, or long-term archives.

Who We ARE

Our work would not be possible without the effort, patience, flexibility, and care of our student, faculty, and staff oral historians, journalists, and advocates. We are extremely proud of the epiphanies, laughter, progress, and fellowship we’ve fostered as a part of this process.

LEADERSHIP TEAM (2021-Present)

Cameron Oglesby

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Ameena Hester

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Amanda Ostuni

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FACULTY ADVISORS (2021-2023)

Erika Weinthal

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Elizabeth "Betsy" Albright

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Lou Brown

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Miguel Rojas Sotelo

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Wesley Hogan

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ORAL HISTORY TEAM (2022-2023)

Christina Boxberger

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Dani Sullivan

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Hattie Halloway

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Megan Corey

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Meghna Parameswaran

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Rachel Kamis

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Sophia Chimbanda

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Tashia Ethridge

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Victoria Ely

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MEDIA TEAM (2022-2023)

Kaylee Rodriguez

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Lillian Thomas

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Madeline Waterfield

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Nhu Bui

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Ryan Parks

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Tatum Larsen

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Jasmine Clairsaint

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2022 Story+ Research Team

Nikki Locklear

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Ariel Chukwuma

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Tri Truong

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Audrey Alexander

Event Team (2022-2023)

Gabriela Nagle Alverio

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Anya Dias-Hawkins

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