Protect Black Land and Preserve Pembroke
On August 27th, Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, approved of a bill (HB304) that green-lighted a pipeline development that will jeopardize Pembroke’s rich ecosystem, history and literally rob Black families of their land. Pembroke, IL has a rich legacy for being the largest Black agricultural center outside of the South.
PEMBROKE TOWNSHIP, IL - A BLACK AGRICULTURAL HAVEN IN THE MIDWEST
Founded by Joseph “Pap” Tetter, wife Mary Eliza, and their children in 1862 after escaping from North Carolina prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, Pembroke Township served as a sanctuary for other runaway and freed enslaved people. The area was an important terminal for the Underground Railroad and experienced continued waves of Black migration through the Great Depression and Great Migration. Pembroke’s Black farmers continue to steward the land and grow self-sufficiency and self-determination using the knowledge and practices passed down through generations.
KEEP PEMBROKE CLEAN
The community has been fighting off natural gas for over forty years to protect the environment and transition towards renewable energy and a sustainable future. The approved HB 3404 bill violates Pembroke’s residents self-determination and allow the proposed fracked natural gas pipeline to endanger Pembroke’s rare ecosystem and harm its historic Black farming community. Despite widespread opposition, minimal opportunities for community input, and failure to conduct and present impact studies, the legislation passed through the General Assembly with bipartisan support as a means of “economic development.” Pembroke residents have made it clear that fossil fuel energy such as this pipeline have no place in Pembroke’s future.
“People here love the earth. This natural gas pipeline has nothing to do with the wellbeing of our community. We don’t have to have it for our livelihood or economic development.”
STOP THE LAND GRAB
Black landowners have lost 12 million acres of farmland over the past century—mostly from the 1950s onward. The Atlantic reports that a million Black families have been ripped from their farms in a “war waged by deed of title” and propelled by white racism and local white power.
The dispossession of 98% of Black agricultural landowners in America is part of our history of racial injustice that is hugely important but mostly overlooked.Today, the vast majority of Black farmland in America is owned by white people or corporations. From a million Black farmers in 1914, there were 18,000 in 1992. “The dispossession of Black agricultural land resulted in the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of Black wealth. We must emphasize this estimate is conservative … Depending on multiplier effects, rates of returns, and other factors, it could reach into the trillions,” researchers told The Atlantic. The large wealth gap between white and Black families today exists in part because of this historic loss.
In the case of the planned Nicor pipeline development, developers are allowed to TAKE Black land through eminent domain and yet again perpetuating systemic racism and environmental harm.
GET INVOLVED
On September 22, 2021 we held a virtual town hall to inform and mobilize our communities to fight the planned Nicor pipeline. Though it has been approved, we still have an opportunity to STOP the development in its tracks.
We are grateful for your support and enthusiasm as we mobilize and resist the development of the ill-planned Nicor Pipeline that has been proposed to run through the historic Pembroke Township of Illinois. The Pembroke Environmental Justice Coalition invites you to stand with us in this critical fight against the pipeline and to support a sustainability plan for a Renewable Pembroke. As Dr. Jifunza Wright-Carter of Healthy Food Hub expressed, the community has been shut out of the planning and development of this pipeline deal, so there are many unanswered questions. We need your support, skillset, and people-power to make sure our needs are addressed and demands heard.
If you are interested in supporting the #PreservePembroke campaign or in joining the Pembroke Environmental Justice Coalition please complete our interest form here.
If you are interested in receiving email updates on what’s happening on the ground, please sign up for our mailing list through our campaign landing page here. You can also email any questions you have to preservepembroke@gmail.com
Resources:
Pembroke and Pipeline News:
Read, “Race, Poverty, Farming and Nicor Gas Pipeline Converge”
Read, “Does rural Illinois really need a new gas pipeline?”
Watch, " Why a Proposed Natural Gas Pipeline is Drawing Controversy"
More information on the passed HB 3404 bill: