Photo Essay: A Louisiana “Fenceline” Community
In Colfax, Louisiana, an interracial group of residents are exposed to harmful inhalants every hour, and many have begun to get sick. The toxins come from an open-air incineration facility on the outskirts of town. As residents protest and document their experiences of environmental violence, the town has continued to come to grips with the Colfax Massacre of 1873, an extreme instance of white supremacist violence which changed U.S. history and set the stage for the Jim Crow era.
This piece combines selected photographs by Tulane’s Critical Media and Visualization Lab and watercolor portraits of Colfax residents by New Orleans-based artist Hugo Martínez.