Video History of Newark Environmental Activism Now Available Online, at Library

Ironbound Community Corporation’s Environmental Justice History and Resource Center  has recently transferred its archive of VHS tapes chronicling the group’s decades-long fight against pollution to DVD format. The DVDs are available for public viewing and for research at the 140 Van Buren St.

The material now on DVD dates from the 1980s and will eventually include material from a cable television program, “Ironbound Insights,” which was produced by former executive director Victor De Luca.

Some of the material has also been posted online at You Tube and can be viewed by clicking here.

The transfer was paid for with a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

“This is an excellent way to preserve history to educate future generations,” said Lee Sandra Medina, who represented state Sen. Teresa Ruiz at a recent event celebrating the transfer. “The film clips brought me to tears,” wrote another participant. “I am a teacher and am looking forward to bringing my students to see the archive.”

The archives can also be used for research. “The various sources and materials gathered at the resource center, and the way they are presented, have been invaluable to my research,” said Raysa Martinez Kruger, a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University.  “The archive provides a substantial record of the community’s experience and perspective in the struggle for environmental justice since the late 1970s.”