After oil containing highly toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is illegally dumped alongside roads in Warren County, North Carolina in 1978, local Black residents join together to protest the impacts on their health and community. Warren County has one of the highest concentrations of African-American and low-income residents in the state of North Carolina.

The trucking company responsible is eventually charged, and the contaminated soil is relocated to a PCB landfill, but within a few months of burying the waste, the EPA finds significant PCB emissions outside the site. Protests continue, and in 1982, over 550 people are arrested for blocking truckloads of contaminated soil from entering the landfill. Resistance will continue until detoxification of the site is finally completed in 2004 after being funded by the North Carolina General Assembly in response to sustained pressure from organizers.

This struggle is often considered the birth of the Environmental Justice movement in the United States. It brings global attention issues that impact poor rural communities, especially in the U.S. South and Global South.