ABSTRACT
Alabama is host to the nation's largest hazardous waste landfill, located in Sumter County near the small town of Emelle. This chapter examines the issue of hazardous waste and race through a case study approach. It focuses on four years of field and archival research. The chapter deals with a description of Sumter County and the economic impact of the Emelle landfill. It discusses a black political empowerment since the 1960s. The chapter describes the mobilization of local opposition to the landfill and the emerging alliance between environmentalists and civil rights leaders. Agriculture, the historic base of the economy, has suffered declining fortunes due to depletion of soil fertility associated with continuous cotton production in the 19th century. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the logic inherent in siting hazardous waste facilities and the likelihood that other minority communities would be selected as sites as a consequence of this logic.
