Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among the highest in the nation. Because of the concentration of factories and other chemical industries in their neighborhoods, residents face elevated rates of lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses in addition to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular disease, all of which can lead to premature death. Fighting to Breathe follows a dynamic and creative group of high school students who decided to fight back against the race- and class-based health disparities and inequality in their city. For more than a decade, student organizers stood up to unequal land use practices and the proposed construction of an incinerator and instead initiated new waste management strategies. As a Baltimore resident and activist-scholar, Nicole Fabricant documents how these young organizers came to envision, design, and create a more just and sustainable Baltimore.

About the Author

Nicole Fabricant is Professor of Anthropology at Towson University in Maryland. She is the author of Mobilizing Bolivia's Displaced: Indigenous Politics and the Struggle over Land and is co–executive editor of NACLA Report on the Americas.

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Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Characters
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Failed Development on Baltimore’s Toxic Periphery: A History
2. Free Your Voice: An Origin Story
3. Fighting the Nation’s Largest Trash-to-Energy Incinerator
4. “Whose Land? Our Land!”: Land Trusts as Fair Development
5. Compost! Learn So We Don’t Have to Burn: Zero Waste Is Our Future
Conclusion

Postscript: A Letter of Confession to the Activist Scholar
Notes
References
Index

Learn More

Learn more at fightingtobreathe.us

Reviews

“Eye-opening and inspiring."
— Ethnic and Racial Studies

"Fighting to Breathe [is] an important resource for undergraduate classrooms, particularly in this moment when critical justice approaches to teaching climate change are essential."
— New Politics

"Fighting to Breathe is a vital narrative that challenges not only the systems and people that hold power but also the organizers and activists who are building power. Readers will be convinced that we each have an obligation to dismantle Baltimore's toxic environmental ecologies."—Lawrence T. Brown, author of The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America

"What a concrete examination of a fight for environmental justice! Nicole Fabricant delivers an excellent analysis of the development of a struggle around economic justice in Baltimore. She provides the historical foundation for a scholarly yet passionate look at a conflict in a city in transition, with a focus on the actual work of young activists."—Bill Fletcher Jr., author of "They're Bankrupting Us!" and 20 Other Myths about Unions

"Fabricant centers the gripping stories of youth fighting for the right to breathe in Baltimore while providing a nuanced exploration of the role of an activist-scholar in the trenches. A thread of urgency weaves throughout the book, from environmental injustice and police violence to the global pandemic. This is a book of our moment."—Nicole King, coeditor of Baltimore Revisited: Stories of Inequality and Resistance in a US City

Awards

AAA Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in Anthropology 2024, American Anthropological Association

Media

Red Emma's Bookstore: Nicole Fabricant presents Fighting to Breathe

About the Book