Kayden Huey

Professor Gwen Mullins Alegre.

ENGL 1010.XX

September 6, 2024

Personal Narrative Essay

In the heart of my hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, I grew up highly unaware of the environmental injustices that were happening around me. I was raised in Lakeland, Tennessee, which is about twenty minutes outside of Memphis. I never had to worry about running water, emissions from factories, or any kind of pollution. But it was a whole other story for the people that lived in Byhalia, Tennessee. Byhalia is a historically black community that's about thirty minutes away from Memphis. In 2019, energy companies drafted a plan to run an oil pipeline through Byhalia, exposing residents to severely unclean drinking water. While this plan was in motion, the pipeline avoided the surrounding wealthier white neighborhoods. This disheartening unequal distribution of environmental injustices confronts systematic inequalities and begs the question of how it affects this community. …show more content…
Byhalia was formerly known as “Boxtown”. The name Boxtown stems from the poverty its residents face. Years ago, people were forced to use trashed boxcars from the railroad to work on their homes because they had no money for materials. The safety and the value of residents’ homes and land are under threat from the Byhalia Oil Pipeline project. Many homes in the area did not have running water until the 1980’s. The pipeline could’ve also damaged and polluted the Memphis aquifer, the incredible source of the purest drinking water that has been around for centuries. Low-paying jobs and economic oppression continue to this