Viv Tolson Wayne rang the large dinner bell on her front porch along Britt Road in St. Pauls. The crowd on her front lawn hushed their conversations and turned toward the 75-year-old, who wore a red T-shirt and white cowboy hat.
On that April day, Tolson Wayne gathered dozens of her sisters from the Lumberton Alumnae Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority to protest pollutants in the Robeson County Landfill, which has an entrance about a half-mile from Tolson Wayne’s front door.
“We are here to let people know that they have a voice,” Tolson Wayne said from her porch, “so environmental injustice turns to environmental justice.”…