Mossville, Louisiana, is located outside Lake Charles and was founded by freed Black slaves around 1790. However, the petrochemical industry built factories surrounding the community, resulting in environmental health problems that pushed people out. As the once thriving community began to dwindle, oral historians scrambled to document and preserve Mossville’s stories. Director of the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Jennifer Cramer talks about the Mossville Oral History Project and the powerful work she and her colleagues have done to document, involve communities, and share people’s stories.
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