Staging Environmental Racism: The Free Southern Theater's Environmental Justice Script and Use of Documentary Theater.

The Free Southern Theater, a cultural project started by members of the SNCC and based in the Desire neighborhood of New Orleans, created a play called The Ghetto of Desire in 1966. Highlighting the environmental conditions of the neighborhood, including poor housing, lack of greenspace, and hazards that lurked in the waste dump and Industrial Canal that boxed residents in, this performance identifies environmental racism and environmental justice before they were named as such. Produced from community engagement, the same method that SNCC used to build up local leaders, the Free Southern Theater highlighted the landscape of injustice and gave a forum where residents could articulate their struggles and visions for change. Recorded to be aired nationally on CBS, the Housing Authority of New Orleans had the program blacked out locally. The Free Southern Theater performance is part of the "groundwork" that led to the environmental justice struggles that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]