Marquita Bradshaw at the 2010 Gandhi-King Conference in Memphis

The Gandhi-King Conference on Nonviolence in Memphis, Tennessee, always brings together an impressive group of grassroots activists working to confront militarism and injustice wherever it manifests.

The people of Memphis, particularly in predominantly African-American communities, have been burdened with the deadly effects of  military toxics for a very long time.

Marquita Bradshaw participated in WRL Asheville's presentation on the S.E. Nuclear Complex, alerting us to the ongoing work of the sixteen-year campaign for accountability initiated by her parents in 1995. Kenneth and Doris Bradshaw founded Defense Depot Memphis Tennessee Concerned Citizens  to educate and mobilize the community around the dangers related to the now-closed military facility and to raise the alarm about the health hazards of the leaking mustard gas bombs and other toxic waste buried at the 640-acre Defense Depot site. The fenced and guarded depot, once the U.S. military's largest supply store-house, operated from 1942 to 1997.

Estimates range from 187 to 289 different compounds are buried there, including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, trichloro-ethylene, carbon tetrachloride, pesticides, dioxin, chlorodane, and PCBs. Numerous area residents, including Mrs. Bradshaw's grandmother, have died from cancers directly caused by exposure to the depot's toxins. 

"What I've learned about military weapons production and cleanup is that the way they have treated people of color throughout the United States is the way they are treating countries of color throughout the world.”

  Doris Bradshaw

 For information on work of Defense Depot of Memphis, Tennessee Concerned Citizens, Email: ddmtccc411@yahoo.com; or call the office at 901-726-0008.