First slavery, then a chemical plant and cancer deaths: one town's brutal history

Long before Reserve, Louisiana was home to a chemical plant and riddled with cancer, it had suffered the violent deprivations of enslavement

At night the Pontchartrain Works lights up the horizon. During the day the tall scaffolding and plumes of emissions soar into the sky.

The chemical plant has caused misery here for years. But the land on which it is built holds older and even darker secrets. It is a history, say some residents of Saint John the Baptist parish, which helps explain the pervasive racial and environmental inequality that persists to this day.