The 85-mile industrial corridor from Baton Rouge to New Orleans in Louisiana, known as "Cancer Alley," is densely packed with hundreds of chemical and oil-and-gas facilities. Most of the local residents are people of color, chronically exposed to polluted environments, while U.S. government intervention in water quality and food safety remains extremely limited. Residents grow up witnessing refinery flares, oil spills, and water warnings, and their risk of developing cancer is over 40 times higher than the national average.

Robert Taylor was born in 1940 in St. John Parish, Louisiana, where his family has lived for generations. Land once filled with sugarcane fields and crops is now surrounded by large chemical facilities. Trucks carrying hazardous chemicals run day and night, and acrid fumes fill the air. Within a 10-mile radius, more than a dozen heavy industries operate, releasing pollutants that exceed levels the human body can safely tolerate. Taylor has lost numerous family members and friends to cancer, including his mother, brother, first cousins, and eventually his wife. Fruits and vegetables that were once picked and eaten freely are long gone, and residents are afraid to even approach the trees in their own yards, which have already died from the top down.

Not far from St. John Parish, in St. James, Sharon Lavigne founded the community organization RISE St. James to fight for local residents' right to live with dignity. As she points out, in St. James, nothing is safe – not your eyes, nose, ears, or stomach – and living there long enough can lead to nearly any type of cancer. Meanwhile, local officials who were supposed to represent the people have sided with chemical companies, sacrificing residents' health for industrial expansion. To this day, Sharon continues to advocate for a safe living environment.

A recent UN report classified the situation in Cancer Alley as "environmental racism," noting that companies prioritize profits while regulators fail to act, treating the community as a sacrifice zone. In Cancer Alley, disease and death are no longer random but the result of long-term pollution and systemic neglect. Residents continue to call on the U.S. government and corporations to take responsibility, halt production, and restore the environment, yet their voices are drowned out by the roar of machinery at the industrial plant.