David DeMarco

Chester is Rising

No. of episodes

7

Latest episode

2021-07-04

Where can you listen?

Arson, break-ins, death threats, the Ku Klux Klan - all tried to stop her.

Zulene Mayfield is a zealous resident whose family is being poisoned by one of the United States’ largest trash incinerators. Her hometown, the city of Chester, Pennsylvania, was invaded by a unique clustering of solid waste facilities in the late eighties and early nineties. Her activism fostered Supreme Court cases which sparked the US environmental justice movement, but after a decade of leading the fight, she vanished in 2001.

After nearly twenty years of lurking in the shadows, Zulene resurfaces in 2019. She connects with a local podcaster to not only tell her story, but make one thing abundantly clear: she will reclaim Chester’s right to breathe.