Dirty Justice: Tennessee Towns and Toxic Water

On Jan. 9, 2007, Harry Holt died. He was 66. He died without media fanfare, despite his status as the founder of the the gospel group, the Dynamic Dixie Travelers. He died from a disease that has afflicted thousands of Americans; except, his own government might have killed him.

Unlike many African Americans, Holt had obtained his "40 acres and a mule," sharing with his three brothers a verdant 150-acre spread in rural Dickson County, Tenn.; a holding that had passed down to them through seven generations. He and other African Americans, who comprised less than five percent of the county's population, formed a small enclave on Eno Road, where their ancestors had put down stakes since the post slavery era.

It could have been a pretty picture of the American dream. Instead, the pastoral paradise was decaying from within; eaten away by a cancer.

You see, a mere 54 feet away from the Holt's home lies the Dickson County Landfill, now a garbage transfer site. But for years it had been the dumping ground for toxic waste, which eventually seeped through the soil and into the Holts' drinking water well, from which they had drunk for years.

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