Deborah and Ken Ferruccio saw the toxic chemical spill while they were driving home late one summer night in 1978: a big smelly swath of brown oil on the side of the road. Reverend Willie T. Ramey saw it too. He was a pastor at two local churches and a respected community leader. And not long after that highway spill, he agreed to meet the Ferruccios just after midnight in a barn in Warren County, North Carolina. The Ferruccios told Reverend Ramey they needed his help.
But the people of Warren County found that they were not powerless. Fueled by the spirit of the civil rights movement, they challenged their own political leaders over the toxic chemicals being dumped in their community.
But why were they being illegally dumped in Warren County on the side of the highway? This question tortured the Ferruccios. So they went searching. And they found that they weren't the only people in the county who were concerned. "The people of Warren County are by no means cowards," Ramey says."I personally feel, along with other Warren County citizens, that a person who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for."
They created a fact sheet and took it door to door. They gave it to businesses, and to ministers to share with their congregations. And in just two weeks, all kinds of people had joined the opposition to the landfill. There were local pastors, education leaders, business leaders, members of the local NAACP.
The letter brought exposure to the grassroots campaign just two weeks before the public hearing for the landfill project. 92 people signed up to speak during the public comment period, including the Ferruccios. But Ramey's comments might've gotten the most love that night. Gov. Hunt had said it was too expensive to move the tainted dirt out of state, but the toxic waste had to goFor Ramey, whose family had lived in Warren County for generations, this fight was part of a struggle he'd experienced his whole life.
"I attended segregated schools," Dollie says."Growing up in that environment and having to move on the other side of the street to make sure I didn't get called the N-word, or being pushed or shoved, I saw how unjust that was. So my experience really formed my zest for justice." The sheriff was white, the county manager was white, Dollie says. There were no Black people on the school board, and just one out of five county commissioners was Black.