ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anna Tropiano is a senior at the University of Michigan majoring in Political Science and minoring in Writing. This project serves not only as a capstone for her undergraduate writing career, but also as a culmination of her passions: women's health, activism, and environmental justice.
Read the companion essay below that Anna wrote to accompany this project:
As a student of environmental justice courses, and as a researcher for the Department of State on environmental defender conflicts around the world, I felt an obligation to share this portion of my education with other University of Michigan students who might not know that grave injustice is happening close to our campus. So this semester, I wrote an article on the activism happening in Detroit zip code 48217, the most polluted zip code in the state of Michigan that’s home to the state’s only oil refinery, Marathon Petroleum Corporation. In the process, I learned more than I knew before about how people of color are targeted by industries, and how Black women have been leading the resistance.
To do this, I spent weeks reading journal and news articles, as well as watching videos of protests and members of the community speaking at community meetings, hearings with state representatives, and as panelists at environmental justice events. Then I had the chance to interview two residents of 48217 and community leaders: Theresa Landrum and Emma Lockridge. Their insights, sometimes unified and sometimes differing, gave me a fuller understanding of the community’s frustrations and strategies when working with industry and outside forces, as well as how Black women are uniquely connected to the fight.
I hope that this work will help college students and all readers rethink their approach to activism, and approach communities with more humbleness and respect for their knowledge and wisdom, rather than prescribing them solutions as an outsider. It was important to me to keep my voice as a student in the piece present throughout, so that I could present myself as a student of the community’s knowledge, and acknowledge how race and difference in lived experience influence all relationships.
Most of all, I hope that this piece successfully emphasizes the work that Black women do for our planet and communities that goes unacknowledged. This work is dedicated to them.