Snapshot: Acts of Civil Disobedience

In her early days as an environmental activist collecting massive amounts of data, Wilson organized many meetings and filed petitions. But her calls to protect the bays were mostly ignored. She decided to embark on acts where she simply wouldn’t be ignored. What did Wilson do?

Wilson sank her own boat where the Formosa plant discharged into the ocean. She chained herself to the tower of the Union Carbide factory to drop a banner saying “Remember Bhopal” (and was arrested on terrorist charges). Civil disobedience has a long history in advancing social change. It was famously used by Martin Luther King Jr. for the civil rights movement in the US. King borrowed it from civil disobedience acts to disobey colonial law in India, encouraged by the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.  

In 2015, the Obama-Biden administration lifted a limit on American petroleum exports in place since the 1970s. They were lobbied by the Independent Petroleum Association of America. That same year, plans to expand the Port of Calhoun County intensified. This would be in partnership with Max Midstream, a newly incorporated pipeline and shipping company owned by a real estate developer in Houston and a financier in London. Planned expansion would increase oil storage capacity and link the port to pipelines connected to the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford shale fields in west Texas, increase oil storage capacity, and deepen the port enough to accommodate Suezmax oil tankers, enabling oil exports to Europe and East Asia. 

Wilson fought back in multiple directions. She went on a 40 day hunger strike at the bay outside the Alcoa and Formosa plants. She laid in a coffin outside the offices of the US Army Corps of Engineers in Galveston, and was arrested for “obstructing a highway or passageway”. 

Acts of civil disobedience made sure that Wilson was visible to whistleblowers from within Calhoun County’s plants. One whistleblower was shift supervisor and wastewater manager at Formosa Plastics, Dale Jurasek. In the 1990s, Jurasek started suffering from sores that no doctor in Calhoun County could explain. Months later, after several visits to a regional medical center associated with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Jurasek learned that the chemicals he was exposed to at the Formosa plant had caused irreparable damage to his nervous system. In 2008, he reached out to Wilson for a meeting. They met out of town, evading recognition by neighbors. Their meeting produced a coalition that has had staying power.

In 2010, the Taiwanese environmental legal defense group Wild At Heart invited Wilson to visit Taiwan and tour communities where Formosa Plastics Corporation was discharging toxic pollutants. There, Wilson delivered the Black Planet Award in a protest action at Formosa Group’s annual shareholder meeting – one of the many examples of civil disobedience over her 30-year long career as an environmental activist.

 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What is civil disobedience? How has Diane Wilson utilized this political tactic in Calhoun County and beyond?

• What were the benefits of using civil disobedience to hold Formosa Plastics accountable? 

• What are the limitations of civil disobedience as a political tactic? What alternatives exist today?