Arts
A once-thriving community founded by formerly enslaved and free people of color, Mossville, Louisiana has become a breeding ground for petrochemical plants and their toxic black clouds. Many of the town’s residents have been forced from their homes and those that stay suffer from prolonged exposure to contamination and pollution. Amid this chaos and injustice stands one man, a local resident named Stacey Ryan, who refuses to abandon his family’s land and his community. In this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI, director Alexander Glustrom and producers Katie Mathews and Daniel Bennett discuss their documentary “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall” that chronicles Ryan’s heroic stand against the powerful chemical conglomerate that took over his town.