Residents of Cancer Alley are deeply familiar with disease and death. Many of them, especially the region’s Black communities, have witnessed their loved ones suffer from asthma, diabetes and cancer. They have watched them die. Sprawling chemical plants spewing waste into the air sit just down the street. The smell of toxins never quite goes away.  

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This region is the 85-mile corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana. This stretch of southern Louisiana contains nine parishes that sit along the Mississippi River. There are around 200 gas and chemical plants in Cancer Alley, and most of these plants were built on or near former plantations. 

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“[There is] one street where 80 percent of the people on the street are either living with cancer or they have a family member who has passed away from cancer. It's been depressing…there's communities that are boxed in. They have industry on both sides of their communities,” Shamell Lavigne told Inequality.org in an interview. She is the chief operating officer for RISE St. James, an environmental advocacy group in St. James Parish. 

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The risk of cancer in the corridor is the highest in the nation. Several studies confirm what Black residents on the ground have been feeling for decades: their bodies are being sacrificed for industrial development and capital accumulation.