In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Alabama, began a legal fight against the agrochemical company Monsanto over the dumping of PCBs in the city's historically African American and white working-class west side. Simultaneously, Anniston environmentalists sought to safely eliminate chemical weaponry that had been secretly stockpiled near the city during the Cold War. In this probing work, Ellen Griffith Spears offers a compelling narrative of Anniston's battles for environmental justice, exposing how systemic racial and class inequalities reinforced during the Jim Crow era played out in these intense contemporary social movements.
Spears focuses attention on key figures who shaped Anniston-from Monsanto's founders, to white and African American activists, to the ordinary Anniston residents whose lives and health were deeply affected by the town's military-industrial history and the legacy of racism. Situating the personal struggles and triumphs of Anniston residents within a larger national story of regulatory regimes and legal strategies that have affected toxic towns across America, Spears unflinchingly explores the causes and implications of environmental inequalities, showing how civil rights movement activism undergirded Anniston's campaigns for redemption and justice.
"This is an excellent book - well written, exhaustively researched, original, and brilliantly conceived. Anyone interested in the history of the South, business history, civil rights, and environmental justice will find this essential reading. But more than that, this is a great story - at turns inspiring, maddening, depressing, and instructive. Everyone knows about Love Canal, Times Beach, Missouri, and Three Mile Island. Hopefully, after this book is published, everyone will know about Anniston as well!"--Gerald Markowitz, John Jay College and Graduate Center, City University of New York
""Baptized in PCBs" is a richly textured history of Anniston, Alabama and the movements of chemicals, capital, and people over a century that transformed it into one of the most toxic towns in the U.S.A. Spears offers a compelling and compassionate account of the South's hope for the chemical industry in the wake of Reconstruction and the environmental and racial inequalities that accrued over time. It is a telling tale of toxic secrets and legal challenges and the heartbreaks and triumphs that are familiar to toxic towns across America seeking redemption and justice."--Gregg Mitman, author of "Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape our Lives and Landscapes"
"A tale of civic redemption."--"Anniston Star"
"A well-written and well-documented account of the importance of environmental justice."--"Choice"
A tale of civic redemption.--"Anniston Star"
A tale of civic redemption.--"Anniston Star"
Spears constructs a thoughtful and nuanced narrative that supports a call for reform in the manufacture, use, and regulation of the chemical industry and military-industrial complex.--
H-Net Reviews Exquisitely fulfills sensory history's potential, advancing concern for the health of natural systems while expressing deep commitment to exposing the historical roots of racial and economic inequality.--
Labour/Le Travail A tale of civic redemption.--
Anniston Star A significant and richly detailed study of environmental justice.--
Journal of American History Spears' writing is clear and interesting, and she explains the complexities of chemical bonds with the same eloquence that she describes the events that took place in Anniston when Freedom Riders rode through the town in 1961. . . . An excellent addition to the fields of environmental, southern, and Alabama history.--
The Alabama Review A well-written and well-documented account of the importance of environmental justice.--
Choice Makes a powerful case for considering health and environmental activism as integral components of the long civil rights movement. . . . Scholars will be metabolizing Spears's observations for years to come.--
The Journal of Southern History 
