- Hey, I'm Valerie June.

Comin' up on "Reel South."

- [Woman] It became this place that was a safe haven for black families to build a community.

- [Valerie] This historic African-American town is engulfed by industry.

- [Woman] You've got 14 industrial facilities and tremendous potential for incidents and releases every day.

- [Valerie] And one man refuses to leave his home and his ancestral community.

- [Stacey] My relatives are direct descendants of the people who founded Mossville.

Free slaves.

- [Valerie] Discover "Mossville" up next on Reel South.

- [Announcer] Major fuaid-back blues music] ["Man Done Wrong" by Valerie June] ♪ [sizzle sound] [dirt thumping] - We do burial sites and headstones and we located in Louisiana.

Pretty for me was the Mossville area, you know?

I bury a lotta people come outta Mossville.

Mossville's not a big settlement, it's a small community.

But a lotta people do die.

[machinery whirring] [dark foreboding music] [axe chopping] - [Man] Once there was a community founded by free slaves [poignant piano music] who lived in peace and happiness; a thriving community.

We raised our own food.

We looked out for one another.

We insisted.

[ax chopping] [poignant piano music] [singer humming] You know, that's gone.

It's all gone.

Pushed over and [speaks faintly].

[eerie foreboding music] [singer humming] [people chattering] [birds chirping] - We hustlin' balls right now to see who got the most balls.

Don't move until the ball move.

Javon, hustle.

Don't move 'til you hit the ball.

Wherever the ball go, you go get it, you hear me?

Don't you stop hustlin'.

Go for it.

[bat clinking] Go, go!

Get it, get it!

Go get it.

Javon got it.

He's just like my mother for everything in the world.

It like God never took her away.

Yeah, that's her.

- [Man] Hustle back.

Hustle back, Jay.

[bat clinking] You 'bout to run.

- You gotta run.

You gotta hustle for it.

Hey, we don't have no temper tantrum.

You work for what you want.

- [Man] Make sure to get him back here.

- Me.

- Me.

- He's four?

- Just turned five.

Next year, you gonna be a terror.

[chuckles] - Hit that ball.

- Hit it.

[bat clinking] There you go.

I could probably end up gettin' him a tee, so he could practice that.

[car engine whirring] From you tellin' me y'all had to change the plugs all the way back in how it's reactin'.

I do believe you have a blown head gasket on this thing.

I just can't change the water pump and say hey, take your money.

- Yeah, I appreciate it.

- You know?

- Lots of mechanics that just, "Yeah, okay.

"We're gonna put a water pump on it."

They do that and the car's still not runnin', so I appreciate it.

- Can't do you like that.

All I could do is show you.

I started doin' this in Mossville at my dad's shop and they had cars backing up.

And my first job I ever done was a Honda Accord.

A head job on it.

12 years old not knowin', goin' back and forth to the library readin' books, whatever.

- Yeah.

- When that first little bit of money hit my hand 800-some bucks.

- Oh, it was over.

- [scoffs] School and mechanic work.

They used to call me Greasy in school 'cause I was so full of engine oil.

[poignant piano music] I was kinda big for my age, you know?

But I was like a gentle giant, the bookworm, reading science books, exploring space.

I always wanted to be a astronaut where I grew up.

My father taught me and I feel that he guides my hand every time I touch a wrench.

The things he taught me will last a lifetime.

And the way my dad died laying on the ground, nerves twitchin', it's vivid in my mind.

- [Photographer] One, two.

♪ Go to meet my sista ♪ We come together [man laughing] - And you think all of me can sit in this little section?

[family chuckling] - [Man] I haven't been out here.

[chuckles] - My last name is Jackson.

My mother was a Hartman, but we are Fishers.

We are who the street is named after, Fisher Street.

[birds chirping] Let's see.

This here's my great-great-grandmother and that's mama Allie.

Auntie's name is Alorraine, but we call her Patsy.

And this is my grandmother.

We call her Toug-a-day, but her name is Lorraine.

My grandmother was the backbone.

My grandmother taught me and my children to believe in God and to not back down from anything.

[poignant piano music] This is my great-grandfather.

We called him Pappo.

His real name is Frank Fisher and this picture and frame is over 100 years old.

Our land means a lot to me because my grandfather came here and he built a home for my grandmother.

That's our foundation.

[soft poignant music] [singer humming] - [Woman] After slavery was abolished, there was seven families that came here and we built a community.

- [Man] My grandfather migrated to a place that seemed to be more free.

- [Woman] Oh, well you gotta understand there's just brutal racial violence.

After the civil war through reconstruction and into Jim Crow Louisiana, it became this place that was a safe haven for black families to live and to build a community.

- [Erica] We had our schools, we had our church, we had our stores.

We were safe here.

Mossville, you were free.

Everybody knew everybody where everybody almost was kin to everybody.

You know, you just weren't afraid.

- [Woman] We were self-sustaining.

That real sense of you know, we are a community.

[poignant orchestral music] - [Man] All around this area, they have fruit trees, wild plums, muscadine and pears.

But when the plants came in there, all them trees die.

- [Woman] It was one plant overnight, then the next plant little bit by little bit and here we are surrounded by 'em.

- I remember my first time, my first drive into the Mossville community.

Actually, I cried.

[helicopter blades whirring] You've got 14 industrial facilities where there's tons of leaks, lots of fugitive emissions and tremendous potential for incidents and releases every day.

The facilities operating as though it was not a community, as though there weren't children, as though there weren't homes where people slept.

[fire whooshing] In parts of the United States that are tucked away, this is what industrialization looks like.

[soft foreboding music] - [Reporter] Mossville is speaking out tonight saying they believe the fire at Axiall's Westlake chemical plant was worse than originally reported.

A shelter in place was eventually issued for Mossville in parts of Sulphur and Moss Bluff.

- [Announcer] The public learned of a chemical spill from a pipeline ranging from between 19 to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride.

It was a spill considered one of the largest in US history.

[soft intriguing music] - [Reporter] A federal agency tested the blood of 28 area residents and found high levels of dioxins, chemical compounds that have been linked to cancer, diabetes and reproductive problems.

[soft intriguing music] - This is a community that has become transformed.

[singer humming] Finally, it was revealed that okay, Sasol wants this land.

- We're here today to make an announcement that Sasol Limited could be investing in Louisiana's largest economic development project in our state's entire history.

- Sasol stands for South Africa synthetic oil liquid, S-A-S-O-L. And they begin purchasing land in Mossville.

[truck engine roaring] - We're in beautiful downtown Mossville.

Population: one.

[truck engine roaring] We were approached by the project manager.

The first offer they announced to me was $2,000.

Puttin' this fence up, it sends a message to them that I'm not going anywhere.

My trailer itself, it's not big, but it's comfortable.

It can sleep five.

It's just been holdin' one, sometimes two if my son come and visit.

He has to live with his mom across the river due to all the construction.

It's not safe really for him to be here.

As you go down the road, every culvert you see was a house.

Right here was my grandparents.

My parents are buried two miles away from here.

Both of 'em died from cancer.

I lost both grandfathers at 52.

Just buried our brother six weeks ago to liver damage.

I lost a uncle at 56.

He died 30 days after my mom died.

I lost a uncle at 37, a aunt at 44.

All these complication dealin' with cancer.

Most of the people moved outta this area.

It's just I elected to stay behind because there's no other place for me.

[poignant piano music] My relatives are direct descendants of the people who founded Mossville: free slaves who settled here in the 1800s.

I'm just not gonna let them run over me.

[drill whirring] [soft foreboding music] - We're in the middle of the voluntary buyout area.

But to me, they're sayin', "You have no choice."

"You either stay here and be miserable "or you move out with what we offer you."

[bird cawing] - Well basically they're forcin' you out.

They're goin' on with their construction right there in Mossville and we're still livin' there.

- Really?

You want some more pizza?

- Yup.

- [chuckles] Where's your plate?

- [Destinee] Here sister, come.

- Here, put this on [speaks faintly].

I don't know where his plate is.

- Where's your plate, handsome?

Who is that, Lily?

- Aunt.

- Auntie, yeah.

I moved outta Mossville a few years ago when I got married, but this is still home.

My great-grandmother used to live where Axiall is and before that, it was PPG.

They had their homes, their communities and they were bought out.

And then they moved to Mossville.

And so it's like history repeatin' itself.

My mom literally does not know where she's gonna move.

- I cannot sell my property, but they're not gonna stop building the plant.

I'm lookin' every day.

But every day that I look, it seem like everything is getting higher and higher and higher.

I don't know where I'm goin'.

To this day, I don't know where I'm goin'.

[bird cawing] [soft foreboding music] - [Stacey] This tape holds the testimony from my parents.

- Hello, I'm Sandra Ryan and this is my husband Alan Ryan.

We're all very sick.

I've had congested heart failure, whereas my husband was found with cancer and he's in stage IV of cancer.

Not only in the lungs, but in the liver and the spleen.

Why is it the whole community has the same problem?

This a picture of my family.

My husband has cancer.

I've had cancer.

This is my daughter Denine.

Denine has endometriosis.

She can't have children.

My son is not in the picture here.

His name is Stacey Alan Ryan.

He has a big health problem.

He has a chemical rash around his neck, problems with his urine.

He's havin' just as many problems in his male area as my daughter's havin' with endometriosis.

He's havin' these problems.

It doesn't make sense to a family of five and everybody in the house is sick.

- They're hurting real bed.

They took everything.

Everything.

Will that be everything?

Everything my whole entire life.

Everything I have now, they're gonna kill me.

- We are human beings too.

The color of my skin doesn't make me a dog.

It doesn't make a guinea pig.

I'm human just like you.

I breathe, I think.

Yes, I think just like you.

[static whooshing] - This took place in July.

September 1st, he was dead.

And then within 10 years, my mom's stage IV cancer without her knowin'.

They rather sit on top of us and dump chemicals on us and wait for us to die so they can get the land dirt cheap.

You know, this is it.

This is why I fight.

[soft foreboding music] This trailer here, this is all we have.

So tell me, would you fight to keep it?

[soft poignant music] [singer humming] - I wanna ask you now about the investment case for Sasol's stock.

Is this a game-changer?

14 billion US dollars.

The governor of Louisiana extremely excited about the foreign direct investment.

In fact, if he's correct, it's the biggest in history of the US.

Let's talk about the funding money.

Is it Sasol and Sasol alone?

- We will consider other alternatives.

But we for that specific site, our preference by far would be to be wholly Sasol-owned and to run that as Secunda in Louisiana.

[dark foreboding music] - [Man] Sasol's plant at Secunda is the biggest source of carbon dioxide on the planet.

- [Man] In Secunda, people have been forced off their land.

You have an industry that can pollute everyone.

- Sasol was the state-owned energy company established by the South African apartheid government.

Countries like Great Britain were sayin', "They're not gonna ship oil to you anymore."

South African government said, "We will find a way to make our own energy."

They established Sasol for the purpose of being an engine for racial apartheid.

[dark foreboding music] - We're currently in Sasolburg.

Everything is run by Sasol here.

Everything in the town is owned by them.

We have one huge petrochemical sector, then we have different chemical plants.

There was an area where white people were living.

But because of the wind direction, white people were resettled.

So black people were dumped in Zamdela Township.

[soft poignant music] [man speaking in foreign language] [birds chirping] - When you wake up in the middle of the night, that's when you will see what is happening outside Sasol.

It's like they are saying, "Let's pollute them while they are sleeping."

Our township is called Zamdela and many people from rural area were brought to Sasol for job opportunities.

They're all coming from their homeland.

They came here because they thought their lives are going to improve according to the promises of Sasol.

They will come here and they will work here.

They will not go back home.

That's why they call it Zamdela.

It means forgetting about the person.

[fire crackling] [soft poignant music] [people chattering] - We are on a daily basis organizing against oil and gas companies, our chemical industries.

We must make sure that our people are participating in the decision-making processes.

In Africa, land is important to life.

Without land, you don't have human dignity.

Indigenous Basutu people lived here before these plants arrived here and their land were taken away.

And you see that across the world: Africa, Asia and currently the US.

[soft poignant music] - [Man] Environmental injustice and racism are still very closely linked concepts.

This idea of disposable others.

If people have a different skin color, you can treat them as if they're not human.

So they can live in the smoke, they can live in the pollution.

They can be the fence-line communities.

[wind whooshing] - Stacey's still there.

Sasol still wants his property.

Companies like Sasol are used to gettin' their way.

Local public officials basically told Stacey Ryan that he'd been living there.

"But now that your property's heavy industrial, "we can't give you any utilities.

"We can't give you any sewer, water.

"We can't get you permits for electrical."

- I've had the power lines taken down around my mobile home, bein' denied water.

I had my sewer system destroyed.

Anything that can be done that'll try to discourage me has been done.

All the blue barrels are my water barrels chlorined, ready-to-go.

This is a homemade septic system and it'll steadily drip chlorine in to cut down on the odor.

When I need to power up the mobile home or fire up electric heater, turn on the truck, plug 'em in, this gives me at least two outlets where I could turn on my electric burner or heater or power up my laptop and TV for the moment.

Right now, my body became full of infection.

I had boils breaking out all over me.

I have one I'm covering up that's tryin' to develop.

♪ That's the sound of the man workin' on the train ♪ All right.

Left heat, water.

That'll work.

[soft foreboding music] - A lotta people like to use the "Why didn't they fight?"

But you could start with slavery.

[chuckles softly] We always fought.

It's in our blood to fight.

It's natural to fight.

♪ Sickness, cancer that you gave ♪ ♪ Sending us to burning graves ♪ Sickness, cancer that you gave ♪ ♪ Sending us to burning graves - We say enough is enough.

Enough is enough.

- Enough!

- [Dorothy] This is about our human rights.

- [Man] That's right.

[protestors cheering] ♪ Sasol buyout isn't fair ♪ Sasol give us our fair share ♪ Sasol buyout isn't fair ♪ Sasol give us our fair share - Was that Mossville's first protest?

- Mossville's first protest.

Her and Brooklyn.

You see Brooklyn in the back?

I guess when the police came at 'em, we had to go.

Yeah, a lotta people got arrested that day.

- This protest was here.

- Yeah, it was up at the landfill that was comin' to Mossville.

- Okay, then they found out they were dumpin' all that stuff back there before they even got the permit to do the landfill.

Do you remember that?

And that's what the plants do at night: They light up the skies.

- Yes, indeed.

- Whether you win or lose, you can go quietly or you can get up and say at least my voice was heard.

[fuel trickling] [generator rumbling] [soft serene music] - I'm addicted to the light.

It's like a futuristic city in front of you.

Your imagination takes hold and you dream of the future.

From a distance with the eerie glow, that's what it looks like: a city from the future.

[soft serene music] We're in a strange, strange land here.

This place is like no man's land.

Since I was little, late at night when you lay on the porch and you could see these flares go off.

You can actually feel the heat.

It was beautiful, dangerous too.

But we didn't know that.

[smoke whooshing] [soft foreboding music] [singer humming] The average person visiting our community, they would ask, "What's the smell?"

But when you lived in it all your life, you don't smell the smells anymore.

The plant I worked at, they made binochloride.

That is a known carcinogen.

It attacks the nervous system to where your body shuts down.

It's well-known if you work there breathin' this stuff in.

It's sorta like a tire with a nail in it.

It slowly, slowly goes down to the point where it'd take you off the face of this earth.

[soft foreboding music] [singer humming] [torch whooshing] This is my only way to really cook and not burn too much gas or electricity.

[rain pattering] [thunder cracking] [truck engine rumbling] [rain pattering] [thunder cracking] [soft soothing music] I was like 11 years old when I planted this thing.

The thing gave way due to ground-water saturation, poor drainage due to all the construction work going on.

It just couldn't hold itself up anymore.

[soft poignant music] axe chopping) [siren wailing] [fire crackling] - There's a fire and then a secondary explosion and another cloud of black smoke, you know?

That's just a typical day in Mossville.

I guess later on they'll have a report about what happened.

We'll know exactly what it was.

This is definitely nothin' new.

[pan sizzling] Yeah, I still do work in the plant.

I'm a union board maker.

Worked in five different plants around here.

Off City Service Road, they make plastics.

Jet fuel over here at Sasol.

They make a lotta things that really helps the world go 'round, you know?

But I just think they should be away from residential areas.

This is about the 10th house we looked at.

With the amount of money that Sasol's gonna give us, we're gonna be in debt after we move and it's discouraging.

- [Realtor] You doin' the buyout from Sasol?

Would you be open to a mobile home?

If you're open to looking at some bigger three bedrooms that maybe you could double people up or somethin', you know?

Let me know about that.

- [Erica] I'm willin' to do that too.

- How do I keep you in that price range?

Lemme see what I can find.

I'll send you an email with options when I get that done later on.

- Okay, that'll work.

- Keep emailin' me please.

Okay, well we'll keep lookin'.

[soft poignant music] - Well we gonna slide on this, boy.

C'mon.

Come off the rain, son.

The prince of LeCharles.

You still a prince.

You know that?

- Yeah.

- I'm a prince too.

- Yes.

- Your grandpa was a prince.

- And pop pop is a prince.

- Mm-hmm.

- Dad, watch this.

- What you got?

- Look at me.

Oh oh.

- Him livin' with his mom is stressful for me.

He just cannot live in a trailer with me because of my livin' conditions now forced upon me, you know?

This'll be the first Christmas he won't have Christmas inside the mobile home.

So it is what it is.

- Look.

Dad, look at this.

[chuckles] I [speaks faintly].

[truck engine roaring] - It's sorta like someone droppin' tap water on your skull 24/7.

And now they built dirt so high, they can just walk live down on your property.

No privacy whatsoever, you know?

Constant constant noise.

The fence is supposed to cut down on the noise.

Yeah, right.

To them, I don't exist.

They tell people that no one lives here.

I'm treatin' 'em like they don't exist.

They don't wave, I don't wave back, you know?

They turn their head, I turn my head and that's how we're coexisting out here.

[truck engines roaring] - [Security Guard] What up?

- Easy.

Can't block me.

[soft foreboding music] - Turn it off.

Turn it off.

- He has a right to leave.

- Not on this street.

Turn it off.

- Free access to my property.

- Turn it off though.

You're not on the free street ride no more.

- Why we're not?

- Not on this street.

- It has to be to my place.

It has to be free reign to my house.

You cannot block me from goin' to my house.

In fact, you blockin' me right now.

This is free access.

[soft intriguing music] Yes, ma'am.

I need a member of a sheriff department or someone to come out to VCM Plant Road.

It's Fifth Avenue.

I'll need access to the Sasol site.

Well I'm still resident of Mossville and I'm havin' problems getting off my property.

Sasol Security is blocking the road.

Won't let me exit off my property, sayin' that it is now a private road which it's not.

It had to be left public for me.

- [Officer] Okay, how long?

- I've been fighting this for a year and a half.

But moreso now the past month, they've been more aggressive with this, denyin' me access to my home.

They said that they were gonna log the report.

[soft poignant music] [singer vocalizing] - Come on, Titus.

C'mon.

Me and Titus would take a little walk through the neighborhood.

It's our little routine.

The kids would run from him 'cause they were scared.

[Titus panting] There was a lotta people in the neighborhood.

[truck roaring] We would sit and visit with some of the people at the church or Miss Bernard who used to sit on the porch and wave at me all the time.

Oh yes, I miss that.

[truck roaring] The school is gone.

Where my auntie used to stay, they now have an overpass goin' up.

[soft poignant music] You don't see any traces of us anywhere.

To everyone else, all they see now is Sasol.

It doesn't look like we were here.

They're erasing everything.

Everything.

[soft poignant music] [singer humming] - Me and my father.

Me when I was little.

Our Andre.

I consider myself like a old dinosaur, the fossil who stayed behind.

You know?

They say that you're not here; it's like you don't exist.

[soft poignant music] They've been slowly slowly increasing their buyout amount, trying to get me off the property.

[drill whirring] [soft foreboding music] [truck engine roaring] [tractor engine rumbling] [dirt thumping] [soft foreboding music] Mom, mom, mom, dad?

Just give me a little strength.

Help your son out.

Give him a little strength.

Need you, big man upstairs, dear Lord.

Let me hold out long enough to see my baby raised.

I want to see my child raised.

Then I can go meet my parents.

[engine roaring] [Stacey sighing] [soft foreboding music] [engine roaring] [Stacey breathing heavily] [engine sputtering] [dark foreboding music] [engine roaring] [monitor beeping] For some reason I started bleeding from the ears.

I got on the ground and laid on the ground for the longest of time.

[monitor beeping] [Stacey coughing] I'm just fed up.

Fed up just with this place completely.

- We're at Destinee's house, my youngest daughter in Maplewood.

It's predominantly white, but I'm sure she deals with some of the same things we dealt with in Mossville.

She's not quite as close as I am to Conoco and Sasol, but she's just as close to Axiall.

- So we moved here to Maplewood and now Axiall's expanding.

Is there gonna be a good enough buffer zone between us and them?

you know, from where we are now, I don't know.

From generation to generation, we've been forced out of our homes.

My great grandmother, my grandmother, my mom, you know?

And what are they gonna do with us?

I don't know.

- Hey, you wanna see the truck?

You see the truck?

That's a big truck, huh?

Because of the settlement we got, I've given up lookin' for a home.

[Titus barking] So I'm buyin' a piece of property and I'm puttin' some trailers on it and possibly renting some trailers to some workers.

So I hope when we move, we find a place where we're not surrounded by plants.

And our water isn't contaminated with something that's poisoning our bodies.

And it doesn't irritate our skin and we won't have as many health problems.

[soft somber music] - I have a photo of my grandfather and my father looks just like my grandfather and I look just like my father and my son looks just like me.

As you go down the line and you see people dying of cancer, is this the fate meant for me?

The doctors tell me, you know, I might not even live to see him graduate as bad as my body's deteriorating.

My wish is for him to be far away from this place to end this curse.

[soft poignant music] This place right here in Texas, look at the caption.

They'll welcome me hand over foot if I do come.

"Voted best place to raise kids in Texas."

Definitely no plants or nothin' involved and voila, a map of the place.

Everything is just perfect.

This is my dream for him and my future for my grandchildren with him.

- By my signature and Stacey Ryan signature below, Stacey Ryan hereby accepts Sasol's offer.

Here you go, you wanna sign right here.

This'll happen fairly quickly, Stacey.

[soft somber music] - I just can't keep up without some outside support.

At this point, I need to do whatever I can as a father and make sure that he's taken care of before my body deteriorates any more.

[soft foreboding music] - You can see all of the township from here and you can see the view of the refinery.

We find that black people are continuously being settled in between oil and chemical refineries.

[soft poignant music] Our struggle is a collective struggle.

It's a human struggle for human survival.

- The more we can see the connectivity between what's happening in Mossville and who we are, I think the more opportunities there is to make the kind of real seismic change that's needed.

How many more Mossvilles do we need before we say enough is enough?

[soft poignant music] [Destinee and child chattering] - I want my kids to look back.

I want them to know about my great grandmother and her home and her street, Fisher Street.

There's streets named after our family because we lived here.

That's where this journey started for us.

Every old picture, I've gotta find it.

I'm gonna keep it and I'm gonna horde it.

I'm gonna show them their people and I'm gonna show them the houses that were there and I'm gonna show them not to let the same thing happen again.

You fight for your people.

Never forget where you come from.

Because you come from a little place called Mossville.

So when you're out doing big things, you never forget where you come from.

[soft poignant music] [child chattering] [singer humming] [soft poignant music] - Once there was a community founded by free slaves who lived in peace and happiness.

I want people to know we existed.

[TV static] [somber music] ♪ ♪ ♪ [soft poignant music] ♪ ♪ ♪ [laid-back blues music] ["Man Done Wrong" by Valerie June] ♪