POISONED WATER

Foregrounding the intergenerational activism of community members, this work takes a long view of the Flint water crisis as an indicator of U.S. environmental struggles.

The authors begin by highlighting the wisdom of activist, pastor, and lifelong Flint resident Elder Sarah Bailey, who points to the importance of sharing Flint’s story while expressing caution about the impact of outsiders coming to study and report on the water crisis. The context is set through an overview of Flint’s long history, from its beginnings as a fur trading settlement following land dispossession of Ojibwa citizens to its racially segregated heyday as General Motors’ “Vehicle City” up until the dwindling tax revenues of postwar deindustrialization and the organized abandonment of white flight left a heavy burden on the city. The book emphasizes that residents collectively and consistently levied demands against the significant harm caused by enforced austerity, legacies of socio-economic segregation, and environmental negligence long before the highly visible national coverage beginning in 2015. In-depth research and interviews with well-known leaders and ordinary citizens, including many young people, augmented by ample photographs, bring home the tragic outcomes for Flint residents of environmental injustice and the decay of public infrastructure. Readers will understand how this impact will continue to be felt disproportionately by people of color and the poor unless we transform how we govern society.

A careful, conscious encapsulation of a consequential U.S. frontier for renewed environmental justice activism.