Fighting to Breathe

Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore

Nicole Fabricant

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780520976627
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among the highest in the nation. Because of the concentration of factories and other chemical industries in their neighborhoods, residents face elevated rates of lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses in addition to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular disease, all of which can lead to premature death. Fighting to Breathe follows a dynamic and creative group of high school students who decided to fight back against the race- and class-based health disparities and inequality in their city. For more than a decade, student organizers stood up to unequal land use practices and the proposed construction of an incinerator and instead initiated new waste management strategies. As a Baltimore resident and activist-scholar, Nicole Fabricant documents how these young organizers came to envision, design, and create a more just and sustainable Baltimore.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Characters
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Failed Development on Baltimore’s Toxic Periphery: A History
• 2. Free Your Voice: An Origin Story
• 3. Fighting the Nation’s Largest Trash-to-Energy Incinerator
• 4. “Whose Land? Our Land!”: Land Trusts as Fair Development
• 5. Compost! Learn So We Don’t Have to Burn: Zero Waste Is Our Future
• Conclusion
• Postscript: A Letter of Confession to the Activist Scholar
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Series List