Mossville was a vibrant place to be. People fished for their food. Fruit trees lined the streets, and there was a high school and abundant local businesses. Mossville was Black joy exemplified.
A town that used to be full of life is now merely a shell of its former self, and there’s an incredibly racist reason.
For decades, companies have pushed Mossville natives from their homes by opening chemical plants in the heart of town. In 2001, South African company Sasol, the biggest single emitter of carbon dioxide on the planet, swept into Mossville without a care of how their toxic pollutants would impact the people living there.
Studies from 1998 showed that people living in Mossville were sick and suffering from blood containing three times the average amount of dioxins – a toxic compound that causes cancer, infertility, and developmental problems.
While many Mossville residents were forcefully displaced, a few refused to leave the land they’ve called home for generations. LLen LeBlanc was one of them. He’s survived as chronic diseases and complications, including miscarriages and prostate cancer, impacted his and loved ones’ health. He’s bearing witness.
Our people don’t deserve to live like this. Like LeBlanc, we should resist the anti-Blackness pushing us from our neighborhoods in whatever ways we can. We must defend ourselves and continue building up new communities without white influence.