Directors John Rash and Melanie Ho present Our Movement Starts Here, a documentary film about 1982 protests in Warren County, North Carolina that lead to the birth of the environmental justice movement. This free screening will be followed by a Q&A.

In 1982, a rural, predominately Black community in North Carolina mobilized and fought the state’s plan to site a toxic PCB landfill in their county. This landmark action, the first to articulate the concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice, brought together civil rights activists and environmentalist for the first time to fight for common goals. 40 years later, the citizens of Warren County commemorate the anniversary by inspiring a new generation of environmental justice activists to push the movement into a future that grapples with the inequities of climate change, continued environmental atrocities that target poor communities of color, and a system that continues to dump on those with the least power to fight. 

Through contemporary interviews with the original protesters who inspired the environmental justice movement in 1982, this feature documentary tells the story of a rural community fighting the state of North Carolina’s plan to construct a toxic landfill near their homes.