North Carolina PCB Protest, 1982

[2] The controversy dated back to 1978, when a transformer company in Raleigh began to dump industrial waste containing PCBs along rural roads in fifteen North Carolina counties rather than pay for proper disposal.

[4] By 1982, the state had selected the rural unincorporated Warren County community of Afton to store the PCB-contaminated soil and similar waste collected from Ward's illegal dumping sites.

[5] As construction of the landfill began, local residents protested and were soon joined by national organizations including the United Church of Christ and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Longtime civil rights activist Benjamin Chavis tied this protest to racial equality, helping to define the environmental justice movement.

[1] These were the first major actions in which protesters theorized that their communities had been targeted for toxic waste disposal due to their racial characteristics and lack of political power.