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The train tracks run in and out of Wilmington. Growing up, I used to climb up on the oil tankers in the depot. Wilmington is a waterfront community, but we don’t have any access to that water. I remember, before the building of Banning’s Landing Park, I would go there when it was just a brownfield. As a youth, I’d walk out to the pier, and that was my little cut of Wilmington water.
Crossing the railroad tracks, I’d climb up on the cargo containers, just look around — or look out from the oil tankers — sit with the wind for a minute. You know, those cobbles they use to keep the tracks in line? I’d pick up a couple, fill my pockets, walk over to the pier. Meanwhile, there’s the huge refinery brownfield, the port infrastructure to the left of me. I’d pick up my rocks and get my little cut of the ocean. 📍
This three-part series is about more than pollution. It’s about power. It’s about truth. And it’s about who pays the price when profit is protected more fiercely than people.
Over the years, I’ve had conversations with folks who work in oil, who benefit from oil, who have built their livelihoods around these industries. Some of them listened when I spoke about environmental justice. Some didn’t. And in the process, I’ve lost a few relationships — maybe friends, or maybe people who were never really willing to sit with uncomfortable realities in the first place.
But here’s what I know for sure: truth matters more than comfort. And I will never bow down to the idea that poisoning Black and brown communities is justified simply because it comes with a paycheck.
Supporting workers does not mean defending corporate harm. Standing with unions does not require silence about environmental injustice. And solidarity should never come at the cost of community health.
We can fight for labor and fight for clean air. We can demand good jobs and safe neighborhoods. Those struggles are not in opposition — in fact, they are inseparable.
That’s why this series centers the work of Communities for a Better Environment — CBE.
CBE was born out of necessity, not convenience. Out of communities that were tired of being told to wait, tired of being sacrificed. Their mission is clear and uncompromising: to empower low-income communities and communities of color to fight for environmental health, economic justice, and political power. Not charity. Not symbolism. Power.
CBE’s history is rooted in organizing where systems have failed — in places like Wilmington, Richmond, East Oakland, and Southeast Los Angeles — where families live next to refineries, power plants, toxic storage sites, and industrial corridors that were never meant to coexist with human life.
And CBE doesn’t just respond to harm. It builds movements.
They organize residents to lead their own campaigns. They train community members to understand permitting, zoning, and regulatory systems. They use legal strategies to hold polluters accountable. They fight for climate policies that don’t leave frontline communities behind.
These services aren’t about managing damage — they’re about changing the rules so that damage stops happening in the first place.
To understand this fight, you have to understand Wilmington.
The Warren E&P site is not just another industrial facility. It’s part of a long and painful pattern — one where Wilmington has been treated as a convenient place to put what nobody else wants.
For generations, oil wells, refineries, pipelines, tank farms, and heavy industry were planted next to homes, schools, and parks — not because it was safe, but because it was politically easier. Because this was a working-class community, a community of color, a community decision-makers bel
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