Environmentalists mark 30th anniversary of group
Area environmentalists gathered at the Texarkana Public Library Tuesday to celebrate the 30th birthday of Friends United for a Safe Environment.
Several shared successful projects the group worked on, including the Carver Terrace Superfund site, the Western Waste landfill and the Texarkana Wood Superfund site.
FUSE President James Presley said they didn’t act alone in getting the area’s environmental issues resolved.
“One thing I want to emphasize is when I say FUSE was involved or did something, I mean FUSE and many others worked together,” he said. “All issues we worked on were coordinated grassroots efforts, always in tandem with people most affected by the issues.”
The 78 black families at Carver Terrace, also known as the Texarkana Koppers Superfund Site, were eventually bought out after a long struggle, which drew national attention. Patsy Ruth Oliver, who lived in the neighborhood, coined the terms “Toxicana” and “environmental racism.” She made national and world news during the twoday Texas Environmental Justice Conference in 1989 and was featured in a video Greenpeace produced, which was shown around the world.
Local activist Bess Gamble Williams, Oliver’s daughter,
grew up in Carver Terrace and told of her experience.
“A lot of people grew a lot of foods, peppers, tomatoes and things like that. I ate from the land and just like a lot of people there, I suffered quite a bit,” she said. “I almost died from the skin disorder I had gotten from just living there. My skin burned from inside out and that’s one of the things a lot of people overlooked because we didn’t know why it happened, but I had a 50/50 chance of living. When I arrived at St. Michael’s hospital, they asked me what fire I had been in. That’s how horrific it looked.”
She said she stayed in the hospital for three months and lost her taste buds and her fingernails. Her hair also fell out. Williams said she was not alone in her illness.
“I know a lot of the other ones had a lot of skin disorders, as well. “Some had cancers, others just different things going on with different people. A sordid amount of miscarriages were going on and women that were just having a lot of female issues.”
She said she was glad they finally got resolution, although for some who had already died from living in the toxic neighborhood, it was too late.
“By the time they had that conference and mother started sending me things on what was going on, I said I didn’t think they were going to do anything about it because it’s a black neighborhood and knowing what my mother had faced against.”
Former FUSE President Ron Burnett also spoke on Carver Terrace during Tuesday’s celebration. FUSE Member Tammie Davis spoke on her work with Mothers Air Watch, with Shirley Shumake and Richard LeTourneau speaking about work they did to bring awareness of the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir.
FUSE grew out of a precursor group, named the Texarkana Anti-Pollution Society, which was organized in 1970 by Presley and his wife, Fran, Barry Blackmon and his wife, Lyn, and Ralph and Katie Caver.
FUSE meets at 6 p.m. on the first Tuesday of the month at the Texarkana Public Library, 600 W. 3rd Street, Texarkana, Texas.