Into the Mix

Ms. Sharon never thought she’d be the one to take down the industry harming her community. But as her fight gains momentum, she’s scoring wins that are making big impact. 

And Jo Banner never thought she’d own a plantation. But it’s a powerful way to protect the past, while defending her neighbors from the petrochemical industry.

In the final episode of our series from the River Parishes, what happens when you dare to re-imagine a better future for your community, your family, and your home.

The violent history of Cancer Alley began long before the petrochemical industry arrived in the 1960s. Prior to being dominated by plastics plants, this land was home to plantations. 

To understand how this stretch of the Louisiana River Parishes became a “sacrifice zone” – a place where plastic is more important than people – we’re taking a look back at the violent legacy of this land.

Here’s how Ms. Sharon and Jo Banner, a neighbor from nearby St. John the Baptist Parish, are working to honor the past as they fight for their future.

Learn more about the Descendants Project here.

The beautiful stretch of Louisiana where Ms. Sharon Lavigne lives goes by many names: the River Parishes, The Great River Road, The Mississippi River Industrial Corridor, and, worst of all... Cancer Alley. 

This 85 mile stretch of riverbank houses over 150 petrochemical plants. The majority of these plants neighbor predominantly Black communities, many of which are historical free towns created by formerly enslaved people in the wake of abolition. And now, Ms. Sharon’s schedule is filled with funerals for their descendants, who are falling dangerously ill as the industry chokes out the community.

In this three-part series, the evolving harm of environmental racism, and how Ms. Sharon and her neighbors are rising up against it. Learn more about Rise St. James here.

How do you close a jail that’s as old as your city? Step one: gather your people.

In the final episode of this series from St. Louis, we’re talking to the politicians, disruptors, and rabble-rousers who joined Inez’s fight to close the Workhouse. Here’s how they did it, and how you can do it, too.

Want to close the jail or pre-trial detention center in your town? Learn more HERE. And check out the Bail Project’s resources on bail reform HERE.

More than half a million Americans are sitting in jail awaiting trial. And 60% of them are there because they can’t afford not to be.

That’s why the Workhouse jail in St. Louis stayed so full for so long. Some people jailed there were pulled over for speeding, others learned they had outstanding warrants for probation violations. All of them owed something to the courts. 

In the second episode of this series, we’re taking the courts to court, to understand how the system kept The Workhouse jail full for over a century, and how Inez and the community of activists around her emptied it for good.

Inez Bordeaux needs you to know three things: she’s a mom of four, a Scorpio, and she always gets her lick back. So when a court error sent her life into a seven year tailspin, she came out swinging on the other side, and set her sights on justice. How? By closing the jail that symbolized the system that nearly buried her: The Workhouse.

In this three-part series, we’re taking you to St. Louis to meet Inez and the community of activists, lawyers, and politicians that joined together to close a notorious jail that’s almost as old as the city itself.

Please take care, as this episode discusses domestic violence. You can learn more about ArchCity Defenders here.

Into the Mix is all about joy and justice in action, and this season, Ben & Jerry’s is bringing you four multi-part stories that take you beyond the news headlines, and introduce you to the real people at the heart of some of today’s greatest fights for justice.

Host Ashley C. Ford is taking you to meet activists who fought to shut down a notorious jail in St. Louis, a community rising up against the destruction of their health and home in a part of Louisiana dubbed Cancer Alley, and leaders protecting voting rights and inclusion efforts in the south.  

Let’s get into it, beginning July 10th.

Johnny Perez worked hard throughout his 13 year prison sentence. He sewed sheets and facilitated classes, met demanding quotas and helped other men prepare for life on the outside. The highest wage he was ever paid was 34 cents an hour. Meanwhile, prison labor generated $14 billion last year. 

So why do so many people like Johnny leave prison empty handed?

In this Season Two finale, we’re going back to 1865, to understand how a key exception written into the 13th Amendment paved the way for the modern prison industry. From convict leasing to prison plantations, exploited labor is part of the DNA of this country, and more than two-thirds of people behind bars in America labor throughout their incarceration. Their average day wage? Just 86 cents. 

But: there’s a growing movement to end the exception, and end slavery once and for all in this country.

Learn more about the movement to End the Exception here, and be sure to check out Worth Rises’ incredible study on prison labor, and UNICOR’s phone bank video. You can also learn more about Johnny’s work for NRCAT here. 

When Flo was arrested in 2016, he did not expect to be wrapped into the predatory bail industry. $7,500: that was the amount the judge set for his pretrial release. “$7,500 might as well have been a million dollars to me.” As a result, Flo spent two months in jail even though he was legally innocent.

Half a million Americans are in pretrial detention at any given moment, and more than 60% of them are there because they can’t afford bail. In theory, bail is supposed to be one way out of jail. So how did it become a way to trap so many people in, even when they're still legally presumed innocent? 

Learn more about the Pretrial Fairness Act, and support the Coalition to End Money Bond.

Priscilla Robinson says the Southside neighborhood of Asheville, North Carolina was once a thriving, tight-knit community. She describes fruit trees and multigenerational homeowners, booming small businesses and neighbors who looked out for one another. But that all changed in 1968, when the city approved plans for “urban renewal” and displaced more than fifty percent of Asheville’s Black residents, including Priscilla and her family.

Decades later, in 2020, Asheville became just the second city in the US and the first in the south to approve reparations for its Black population, and Priscilla is making sure that the harms of urban renewal aren’t forgotten as a community Reparations Commission shapes its plan.

To see photos of the Southside prior to Urban Renewal, and to explore Priscilla’s research, click here. You can also learn more about the Racial Justice Coalition of Asheville here, and join us in calling for President Biden to establish a federal Reparations Commission here.