Environmental-justice leaders faced vandalism, death threats, and retaliatory lawsuits

Evidence

In addition to its changing identity, other events forced CRCQL to reevaluate itself. For instance, during the legal battle against Thermal Pure, CRCQL experienced numerous forms of intimidation. The CRCQL office was vandalized twice. In one of the incidents, featured prominently in the video Laid to Waste, CRCQL’s office was vandalized, and “KKK” was scrawled prominently above Mayfield’s desk. As the group’s leader, Mayfield received the brunt of many threats against CRCQL. She recalls a neighbor “telling all the little old ladies I better be careful or else somebody is going to firebomb my house.” Her home and car were vandalized repeatedly, and she occasionally received expletiveladen threats, including death threats, on her answering machine. To top it off, Westinghouse threatened to bring a $250,000 lawsuit against her personally for blocking its trucks during CRCQL’s protest. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 276