Oral Histories

Darius Scott (DS): Okay. And you mentioned the landfill a bit a moment ago. Could you describe the moments leading up to the landfill coming to Rogers Road? David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): Oh, gosh! We had, basically, it was, like I said, we were a little country neighborhood. They came into my father s…

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): This was a dirt road, red, dusty, clay. All of this was cornfields, like I said, and a few houses, things, mostly a farming community. And when they did it, the road was so bad that it was tearing up the city s trucks, so they had to pave it sooner than they wanted to. So,…

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): We brought up the fact that they were not keeping the promises that were made. We would go to meetings to voice our protest and, I mean, we were met with disgust and disdain and, “Why are you guys back here again?” [Sound of train passing, whistle blowing] We were bringing…

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): Right now I m the project director and the community organizer. And what I do is special projects that come up, I pretty much organize and get them going and get the community organized into participating. We do a Backpack Back-to-School Bash, where we give our goal is…

Darius Scott (DS): By thinking about the environmental issues that have been faced by Rogers Road, how do you think race factors into those? David Caldwell, Jr.: Well, [laughs] you are in the South! I mean, that’s… that is the South. That’s what, to me, what the South was based on, was race. That’s…

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): For Rogers Road we were looking at a mitigation committee that we are working with. One thing they did agree is that, yeah, we’ve got sidewalks and streetlights, but its twenty years down the road. So do you really feel like you’ve done what you were supposed to do, even in…