Over 40 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, we take for granted that rivers can be restored to a healthy functioning condition. These images taken by EPA photographers in the 1970s show how far we have come, but there’s still much to do.
When They Blew the Levee is a fierce love letter to the power of community, one encoded to Black sociality, the broader American social imaginary, and the mythical power of the Mississippi River. In praxis, it is a political tool—a lyrical baseball bat—for the residents of Pinhook, Missouri to wield in a rally against the sustained structural violence of a biased justice system and racialized world.