Above Photo: By Melissa Sue Gerrits
The farmland in Wade belonging to Tom Clark’s grandfather is in the path of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but not if he can help it. Clark was one of more than 50 people who attended a rally protesting the pipeline Sunday afternoon in Fayetteville.
“We live in the sacrifice zone,” Clark said. “I’m not here to fight the pipeline. I’m here to stop it.”
The proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a natural gas transmission pipeline that would be used to generate electricity at power plants in Virginia and North Carolina, according to a fact book by Dominion, an energy production and transportation company. The fact book said the pipeline will bring jobs to the area, will help meet growing energy needs and is being planned to protect the environment.
The rally was part of a larger protest known as the “Walk to Protect Our People and Places We Live” organized by the North Carolina Alliance to Protect Our People And The Places We Live coalition. Sunday’s rally was at the Eutaw United Church of Christ on Stamper Road off Bragg Boulevard.
The coalition organized a walk along the 205 miles of the proposed pipeline route in North Carolina. On March 4, walkers began the walk in Northampton County.
Protesters who had been walking since March 4 joined supporters and others who will only walk in Cumberland County for the rally.
The Rev. Mac Legerton, the executive director of the Center for Community Action in Lumberton, began the rally with song. People joined in and sang refrains such as “organize don’t agonize” and “stop the ACP.”
Over the course of two hours, about a dozen people whose homes are spread from Fayetteville to New England spoke about why they were against the pipeline. Students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Warren Wilson College in Asheville also attended the rally.
The Rev. Gail McAfee said the pipeline will be harmful to the environment and is discriminatory in nature because it passes through North Carolina’s most racially diverse and economically vulnerable counties. She said she worries that eminent domain will be used to take land from those who can least afford it.
“They don’t care how long you labored,” McAfee said. “They care about the money.”
The rally was filmed for two documentaries in the works by Goodbye Productions based in Wilmington and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill masters students in journalism.
At the end of the rally, the protesters joined hands to sing again.
On Monday at 9 a.m., the protesters will begin their walk near Legion Road and Southern Avenue and head to Parkton Road into Robeson County. After the walk, a teach-in on the proposed pipeline will be held at the Eutaw United Church of Christ.
The walk will continue through Robeson, Scotland and Richmond counties. It is scheduled to end Saturday in Hamlet.
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