Like Selma, Alabama was to the Civil Rights movement, Louisiana is to the environmental justice movement. LEAN maintains a Community Archive and Empowerment Center to preserve and honor the unique history of Louisiana’s community evolution.
For over 30 years, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network(LEAN) has empowered underserved communities to address challenges they face that threaten their health, safety, and quality of life. Much of this history goes untold and yet it speaks to the very heart of our society and democracy. Many of these struggles have led to the complete disappearance of communities and many of the heroes have passed and their stories have gone untold. Meanwhile, we continue to repeat these struggles at an increasing rate. It is up to us to honor these trailblazers and bring their hard-fought lessons into today’s conversation, where they are so desperately needed.
LEAN began building a "Community Archive" to document these historic challenges, honor the heroes and educate future leaders with their lessons. The archive is a collection of articles, photos, videos, audio interviews, maps and related documents all pertaining to community environmental challenges in Louisiana over the past 4 decades. Much of this material is organized into LEAN's Community Atlas which you can explore here. Additionally, this material is catalogued below. If you are interested in anything specific, please feel free to contact us and we will make sure you can find what you are looking for.
Up and down Louisiana’s River Road, small communities exist at the edges of large tracts of land. These communities often represent descendants of freed slaves that settled on the outskirts of the vast plantations they once labored on.
For many reasons, often a lack of local zoning or local authority, these residential communities find themselves adjacent to major industrial developments and the pollution and quality of life impacts that come with them. These conflicts have led to the complete displacement of communities, as documented in the map below. Historically, this displacement has come in the form of government or company funded “buy-outs” often in response to resident complaints and litigation. More recent examples show improvement as some companies have begun to preemptively offer voluntary relocation prior to conflicts while also considering increasingly equitable processes and fair compensation.
LEAN's Community Archive is extremely proud to partner with the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at Louisiana State University to showcase the extraordinary Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement. This book, by Peggy Frankland, is an amazing record of the women heroes that changed the history of their communities. The full audio interviews that form the basis of the book can he heard below.
*UNDER CONSTRUCTION* Active links coming soon
The LEAN Empowerment Center is the physical space that houses LEAN's archive and offices. In addition to LEAN's ever-expanding multi-media archive, LEAN's Empowerment Center includes a library and community meeting space. All these resources are available to the general public and create an unprecedented educational opportunity exploring critical facets of Louisiana’s history that have gone underrepresented for far too long.
LEAN's Archive and Empowerment Center is not limited to our small physical footprint. We work to synthesize our Community Archive into education and illustrative tools that live online(see our Community Atlas) and in person at various locations. Contact us about where you can find LEAN's current exhibits or if you'd like to host one.