Introduction

This series of assignments looks at the historical evolution of environmental inequality in Port Arthur, Texas. Port Arthur has long been a place where pollution abounds. Over much of the 20th century into the 21st it has been home to multiple, massive oil refineries, along with a growing host of chemical plants. It has also long been home to many people of color, and by 1990, had become majority non-white. Offering case study in how and why pollution has historically concentrated in neighborhoods that were Black or Brown, also of how, in response, vibrant environmental justice activism often arose.

The following assignments take students through how environmental inequalities evolved in Port Arthur as petrochemical industries alongside other demographic, political, and economic changes.

1. Jim Crow Roots of Port Arthur’s Environmental Inequalities

2. Modern Pollution Control in the Era of White Flight

3. How environmental impacts have accumulated alongside other adversity in Port Arthur:

4. Port Arthur’s Environmental Justice Movement

5. Impacts of climate change and stirrings of a just transition in Port Arthur