“This basketball court is surrounded by an African-American community on one side and the sprawling Shell refinery on the other. Noise and gasoline stench permeate the area. According to a 1993 study, two hundred thousand pounds of carcinogens were emitted into the air that year. The basketball court is all that remains of an all-black elementary school. In 1968, on the eve of the school’s integration through federally court-ordered bussing of the area’s white children, it was burned to the ground and never rebuilt. In 2002, Shell, prompted by decades of complaints and lawsuits, was forced to relocate most of the residents.” – Richard Misrach