On Sunday, December 6, the Healthcare Equality Network (HEN) – comprised of Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., the Frederick Douglass Foundation, the Black Women’s Health Imperative, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference – the Sierra Club, the AMMD Pine Grove Project, and Cumberland County Landfill Alert (CCLA) gathered in Cumberland County, VA, at the historic Pine Grove Elementary School to speak out against the pending approval of the Green Ridge Recycling and Disposal Facility. 

​

At the community event, attendees heard remarks from influential leaders, such as:

• Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., President of National Newspaper Publishers Association

• Rev. Dean Nelson and Rev. JR Gurley of Frederick Douglass Foundation. Gurley was previously published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on the issue.

• Sonja Branch-Wilson, AMMD Pine Grove Project

• Betty Myers, Cumberland County Landfill Alert (CCLA)

• Sierra Club Virginia Chapter

• Pine Grove alumni, including Dorothy Rice, who shared a moving poem titled “Roots, Crown and Canopy,” about the history of the school.

​

See below for images from the event.

​

​

​

​