This is Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice produced with Vox Creative.

I'm Ashley C. Ford.

Joy today is mine.

I told Satan get me behind.

Victory today is mine.

In 2018, when Miss Sharon first heard about Formosa Plastics plans to build in St. James Parish,

she led a march with some other members of the St. James Health Association.

They wanted to march in the street, but Ms. Sharon says the sheriff told them no.

So I told them both, I say, I guess we're marching on the sidewalk.

Now they can't tell me that now, because I know better.

A few months later, Ms. Sharon led a second march with the members of the newly formed Rise St. James.

This time, they were going to march right in the middle of the road.

So the next march we had was in May of 2019.

Went to the sheriff's department and telling him we want to march.

He said, he can march on the side of the shoulder. I said, no, we're marching on the highway, on Highway 18, I bet. He couldn't tell me nothing after that because I knew better. If you don't know nothing, they can tell you anything. So after that, we got all the paperwork that I went there. Leave from school at day at 2.30, go across the river to go to the people, work done and everything,

to make sure the march was ready.

I didn't want nothing to stop us.

Ms. Sharon and Rise St. James marched down the road toward the Sunshine Bridge, right by the land of the proposed Formosa Plastics plant with the name the Sunshine Project.

Two of Ms. Sharon's daughters, Shemira and Shemel, were there.

And then we got that done in March, and then we had the bulls on.

We were talking on the bulls on.

We were telling them, but we're going to stop Formosa.

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