Mike Roberts

Searching for a way to mark the one-year anniversary of the BP oil disaster, I thought about a series of photographs I saw recently from Lower Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. They weren’t images of coastal destruction, they were the faces of people young and old holding up a simple handwritten message answering this question: “Why Should We Save Coastal Louisiana?”

I visited coastal Mississippi for the first time ten years ago. A friend I knew in Boston, Derrick Evans, had invited me to visit Turkey Creek, where his ancestors had settled after the Civil War. Soon he was drawn into a new life in Mississippi, and I was drawn into making a film about the struggle to protect Turkey Creek against urban sprawl, industrial contamination and disaster.