Saturday, November 11 @ 1-2:30 pm
Join us for an outdoor ceremony and cultural event overlooking the US Steel Clairton Coke Works Plant — one of the worst sources of toxic, cancer-causing industrial air pollution in the nation.
An eight-foot tall “Externality“ monument will be installed, which is hand-carved from a tree killed in climate-fueled wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. This will be the first of many carvings installed in the yards of Gulf South and Appalachian residents, symbolically facing polluting petrochemical plants and fossil fuel facilities.
This is an honoring of those we have lost, and a celebration of collective strength and community power, featuring an African libation (water ceremony) and prayer conducted by faith leaders, a civil rights era song performed by a local teen, personal testimonies from local residents impacted by the heavily polluted air, performance by an eight-member West African drum and dance group, and remarks from the artists and the Clairton resident who has chosen to permanently host this monument in her yard.
Several residents of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” and Texas’s petrochemical corridor – who also plan to install Externality monuments in their yards – will join Clairton residents in a ritual procession with the carving, and then will plant it in the ground.
