In Black America; No Fear, with Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo; Part 2

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. We had a study tour that I organized to bring the new South African leadership, the ANC primarily leadership, from South Africa to MIT to turns out for training. I had organized a training program for them at MIT and at Howard University. During a training program, this one South African leader named Jacob Unconkini approached me and told me that one of our company, US company, poisoning, a community in South Africa. He was so passionate about this that it was very clear from the very beginning if we didn't address his concerns, we were not going to have a training program.

And so we immediately started trying to figure out what was he talking about and whether there was any validity to it. Dr. Marsha Coleman-Audabaya, author of No Fear, whistleblower's triumph over corruption and retaliation at the EPA, published by Lawrence Hill Books. Coleman-Audabaya was a senior policy analyst at the EPA when she discovered that a US mining company was responsible for poisoning residents and a town in South Africa. When she brought this case to the attention of our supervisors at the EPA, she was told to shut up and then deny their promotion. In 2000, she won an historic lawsuit against the EPA based on race, sex, color discrimination, and a hostile work environment. She testified before Congress twice, leading to the passage of a No Fear Act of 2002 to protect whistleblowers. The notification of fellow employees' anti-discrimination and retaliation act passed unanimously by the US Senate and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. It was the first civil rights and whistleblower's law of the 21st century. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America.

On this week's program, No Fear with Dr. Marsha Coleman-Audabaya, part two, In Black America. It wasn't so much for me, in all honesty, because I knew I could leave. I mean, I knew I could get another job. But it was the injustice that I saw, just infuriated me. And not only was it just the injustice that I saw, but the retaliation that they just started heaping on me because I refused to stop talking about the Canadian poisoning. Was that the Detroit in you? That's the Detroit in me. It's got to be the Detroit in me. I just could not let this... I couldn't take my teeth out. I was so angry. And I remember talking to my husband about it and we prayed about it and we sought the face of God.

And I just said, God, if you want someone to fight this battle, I'm your girl. I'm your girl. And I just decided that this situation could not go on the way it was going on. As a young African-American M-I-T-P-H-D social scientist, Dr. Marshall Coleman, Audabaya, landed her dream job at the EPA, working with former vice president Al Gore, assisting post-apartite South Africa. But when she tried to give the government to investigate allegations at a U.S. multinational corporation were responsible for the death of hundreds of South African mining and vital mineral, she found that the EPA was the first line of defense for the corporation. When the agency Stonewall, she blew the whistle. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, she earned a doctor degree from M-I-T and worked with the United Nations before joining the Environmental Protection Agency in 1990. During her time at the UN, she also developed an expertise in African developmental issues. During her tenure at the EPA, she requested that the agency devoted attention to environmental problems in South Africa that were allegedly caused by an American company.

In a book, she says the EPA would need on promises to investigate the matter and the harness she pushed for change to more she faced a backlash from her superiors. On today's program, we continue our conversation with Dr. Marshall Coleman, Audabaya. Well, what happened was, when I first mentioned this issue to people in my office, I was told to shut up and I didn't know why. I didn't know why. Every time I mentioned the nadium, everybody just went blank on me. Everybody was so, it got to a point where it just became one of those things you ever mentioned. I just kept talking about it because I wanted to know what was so horrible. What was going on in South Africa that was so horrible that I couldn't bring it up in a meeting. We couldn't have a conversation about it.

And when all of my efforts were rebuffed in the agency, I reached out to the non-governmental community, the community that I know is interested in Africa. And they tried to get the agency to address this issue. And by that time, the agency knew that I really wasn't going to take my teeth out of this. They called me into a meeting and they removed me from the project. And at that point, it becomes clear that the project was really never about helping South Africa recover from apartheid. South Africa looked at at that point as a new area of investment for American business. And the humanitarian face, which was, I suppose, my face as a black woman, was just simply to be able to get into the inner circles of the ANC so that they could begin to plow the field for American business to take over. So once I was removed, at that point, they said, well, we don't need her anymore. And they brought in the private sector guy to take my position.

And his job was basically just to sell as much junk to South Africa as they could possibly could. So I was still unsatisfied with leaving, not knowing what in the world was going on. And so I organized a group of girlfriends who were medical doctors. And we went to South Africa on our own dime to find out what was going on in Brits, South Africa. Let me, let me stop you there for once you, once you and your girlfriends that you grew up, but prior to that, if I'm not mistaken, to appease you, they put a doctor on the commission and this person was a veterinarian. Yeah, I kept, as I said, I just would not take my teeth out of this. And in fact, I actually had a resolution path, which would have caught for an independent investigation. And then they decided, no, they really did, the investigation would not go forward. But I kept fighting. And so finally, they said, okay, I tell you what, we'll send a doctor to South Africa.

And if he comes back and says there's a problem, then we'll initiate an independent investigation. So as I was working on his paperwork and talking to him, I asked him, what kind of doctor are you and how are you going to investigate this community of, how are you going to investigate the allegations of poisoning by a chemical company? And he started laughing and just said, oh, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a MD. I'm a veterinarian. I'm only going to go to South Africa and work with cows. So there was just no honesty at any level of, of conversation. There was no honesty in the process at all. And at that point, I realized that they were just, they were just going to, you know, make a mockery of it of the entire process. What were some of the, the effects of this mining poisoning that was going on?

The effects are horrible. I mean, it's one of the, it's one of the most lethal substances that we know of. It's called vanadium pentoxide. And before I tell you the effects, maybe I should tell you what it's used in because vanadium is used in everything. That's right. The CIA says that vanadium is a strategic metal mineral. So that it's, it's, it's, a vanadium is actually poured into steel to give steel more flexibility. And that's the reason why our cars can go from summer to winter without cracking. And that was a problem that Mr. Ford had, you know, designing cars in Detroit, right, is that the cars kept cracking. And then he found out about this mineral called vanadium that allowed iron steel to expand and contract when exposed to hot and cold. So that's the reason why planes can fly in the sky. I mean, it's trucks, TV, spoon, forks. In fact, many times if you look at the back of your fork or your spoon, you'll see, you know, you'll see sometimes a little tag which will say, you know, vanadium is, this is made with vanadium. And that's the reason why you can take a fork from ice cream to a stake because the vanadium is allowing the steel to expand and contract. So you can't, so American society is built on a cradle of steel and vanadium is in that steel.

And so bomb, everything you can, a pacemaker, jury, everything has vanadium in it. And this small community in South Africa is producing the vanadium that we use. So we receive 80% of all of our vanadium from this small community in South Africa. So now I'll tell you what the effects are. The effects are horrific. In the first, say, 16 months to a year, a significant number of men will become impotent as a result of exposure to vanadium, which is a major. Anyway, on top of it, in terms of the poisoning aspects of this, their tongues turn green, their tongues turn brown, their tongues turn black, which is an indication of kidney and liver failures. They develop all kinds of cancers, cancers of the esophagus, cancer of the stomach. They bleed from almost every orifice. Their eyes, their ears, their nose, they defecate blood, they urinate blood. And eventually they die. Eventually they die.

I guess the next question is, is this still going on? Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. And as you know, there have been a number of minor strikes in South Africa. Very recently, where I think 34 miners were killed at a uranium mine in South Africa. And the strikes are spreading throughout South Africa right now. But absolutely, when they took me off of the assignment, essentially they stopped even looking at vanadium poisoning. And so nothing was done after I left. And so what we've done over the years is to continue to work with the community to try to get the company, which is based in Danbury, Connecticut, to provide just the slightest bit of worker protections like better gloves. I mean, they were using gloves that were so flimsy, I wouldn't even use them to clean my own house. And they were handling this kind of very toxic substance. They were using those masks that we use in the house for dust. That's what they were using to dig out this toxic element.

And so the men were becoming extremely ill. And one of the contributions that I think we've made to the research is before we started going to South Africa, no one talked about the impact of vanadium poisoning on women. And when we were barred at some point from going into the vanadium mine because of orders that were actually given out of Danbury, Connecticut, to the mine plants in South Africa, we started going to visit the widows of the men who had died from vanadium poisoning. And that's when we realized that their wives were also suffering from vanadium pentoxide poisoning. The men were bringing home the vanadium in under their nails, in their hair, on their faces. The women had never received instructions in terms of how to wash the uniforms.

The babies were on their backs while they were washing the uniforms for the vanadium dust. Their children, the babies, were sleeping between the mom and dad at night that inhaling vanadium dust. And so one of the most poignant interviews that I conducted was with a mother. And I was asking her about her child. And I didn't see a child playing around. And finally she told me that her baby had died. And so I was asking her about the baby, just sort of the usual questions. And then it became pretty obvious to me that the baby had fit the pattern of the other deaths from vanadium poisoning. And I think it occurred to her at that moment too, that her baby had died from vanadium. And I remember sort of shutting down all the cameras and just asking people to take a breather. And she went into her bedroom. And I heard moans that I have never heard a human being make before. And she was just whaling, whaling for her baby.

And finally she came out of the room. And I asked her, I said, you know, this is too painful. We don't have to do this. I said, but I can't tell your story unless I have something on record. And so she just sort of straightened off, stiffened up and said, no, you know, let's do it. And I returned the cameras back on. And I said, you know, I only have one question for you because I'm not going to belong to the interview. What color was the tongue? What color was your baby's tongue when she died? And she looked at me and she said, my daughter's tongue was green. Obviously, there was a lot of individuals that were a part of this struggle in Odyssey. I was particularly somewhat saddened when I heard that Lillian had passed away due to the fact that she was sick. And she couldn't leave work because no one was signing off on her taking sick leave.

And to that point, when did you get to the point that you said enough was enough? Well, Lillian had a big part to play in it. That's actually chapter one of the book because Lillian was a secretary at the agency and, you know, didn't have a big power base behind her. And they downstairs heard she went from being executive secretary to being relegated back to the secretary. That's right. I mean, she was a secretary for an assistant secretary. She had risen through the ranks of high as she was going to get. She was very good at what she did, very good at what she did. And yet, you know, her boss left for another position and she had a new boss, which is one of the things that we tell people because we'll meet a lot of people and they'll go, oh, you know, I have a great supervisor. I don't have anything to worry about. And what I always like to remind them is about Lillian peasant. You are only one supervisor away from a life of hell because that's what happened to Lillian. She was fine as long as this guy was there, but soon as he left, she was thrown back into the secretary pool that she had worked so hard to get out of and she had hypertension.

And the day before she passed away, we tried very hard to get a supervisor to sign off on her sick leave. And they kept telling her, you're not leaving until you finish your work. And so she stayed until she finished her work. And the next day, as she was getting ready to come to work, she died from a massive heart attack. When you had a conversation with your husband regarding your next step that you were going to sue the agency, what type of conversation that you all have and what actually drew you to that point that something needed to take place not only for yourself, but also for your colleagues? You know, it was a combination. I must tell you, it wasn't so much from me, in all honesty, because I knew I could leave. I mean, I knew I could get another job. But it was the injustice that I saw, just infuriated me. And not only was it just the injustice that I saw, but the retaliation that they just started heaping on me because I refused to stop talking about the Canadian poisoning.

Was that the Detroit in you? That's the Detroit in me. It's got to be the Detroit in me. I just could not let this... I couldn't take my teeth out. I was so angry. And I remember talking to my husband about it, and we prayed about it, and we sought the face of God. And I just said, God, if you want someone to fight this battle, I'm your girl. I'm your girl. And I just decided that this situation could not go on the way it was going on. So many people were getting sick, so many people were dying quite frankly. And of course, they never say you're dying from workplace stress. It's always you have hypertension, or you have a heart attack, or you have cancer. But the reality is that people are just stressed beyond their body's capacity to cope, and the body starts breaking down. And I had never attended so many funerals until I started working at EPA. And I just kept thinking, this is crazy what's going on here.

And these are colleagues in the office? Yes, colleagues throughout the agency, not just my office. So the breaking point for me was with Lillian's death, no doubt about it. And then the second breaking point for me, and I think it's probably one of the most moving parts of my book, was the EPA had promised to give this one woman in South Africa, $30,000 grant. She had lost her son during the revolution in South Africa. And as a way of handling her grief, she had taken in children. She had formed and started at orphanage for children who had lost her parents during the revolution. So here are two kindred souls coming together to support each other. And we promised her we were going to give her $30,000 to strengthen her orphanage and to turn it into like a green's job kind of orphanage where they would actually teach environmental skills to the orphans. So that when they left, they'd have some skills that they could work with. And because I kept talking about the Native, they decided that they were going to take out their anger on her.

And so before we gave it to $30,000, and I told her that she had to sort of fix up the place a little bit, it couldn't leak. She needed some chairs and tables and just basic things that would make the place safe. So that if we gave her money, we wouldn't find out that children had been hurt in her building. And so she said to me, if I don't have much money, so if I use this money to fix up the orphanage, if you don't give me the money, I'm going to have to close the orphanage and the children are going to be let out in the street. And I promised her this is not going to happen. I've already put the paperwork in. If only $30,000 you'll get your money. Where the turns out when they decided to retaliate against me, they decided to go through her. And they risked you the $30,000 grant from her. And I can still hear her screaming when I called her and told her that we were not going to give her $30,000. And so she had to close her orphanage and the kids went on the street basically to become prostitutes or whatever hustlers, whatever they could seek out.

And it was that day that I picked up the phone and I called the Washington Post and I told them what was going on inside that. And I told them what was going on at EPA. How did you happen to select Attorney Shapiro to represent you? Yeah, I had another attorney who had sort of a family crisis and couldn't represent me and she said to me, you know, I really want, I know it's a lawyer. I want to get the money that I've put into your case. So I'm going to hand you over to the only attorney who has never lost the case against me. This is one of the, this guy is the baddest guy on the block. And if I know, if he handles your case, I'll get my money back, but you'll also win. And that's how I met David and he turned out to be a real character, but an absolutely brilliant trial lawyer, absolutely brilliant trial lawyer. What was his like 12 years ago? And ironically, I don't know if it was, it was on your birthday that the verdict came in that through all that you've gone through and all the suffering that you've seen with your colleagues in the agency that the jury came down in your favor.

Yeah, it was, it was pretty amazing. And when one of the things that we didn't talk about, it was the fact that, you know, I was target of death threats, death threats. Yeah, it was pretty rough, you know, it was pretty rough and it was only my faith that got me through because I truly believe that no one could touch me as long as God was on my side. I believe that with every fiber of myself, every fiber of my being. And so I was able to go to work and pick up the phone and how people say to me, don't be surprised when you go home, go to the garage and you put your foot on your accelerator, you get a big bang. Or when they told me what color clothing my children had on as they were playing in front of my house. It was pretty horrific, pretty horrific. And then it just all came to a conclusion at the trial. You know, we put on a fairly aggressive defense of what happened to me at the EPA.

And a trial came back saying that yes, EPA was guilty of racism, sexism, color discrimination, and a half the work environment. So basically the public, my peers, through the book at EPA. And all the newspapers and TV stations and EPA employees took to the streets and we had demonstrations and Congress condemned the EPA administrator, Carol Browner. So it was an interesting period. But interestingly enough, when I came back to my office after the trial, they had rammed back to my office. So it didn't stop. But nevertheless, we had won a major victory. It was interesting that Ms. Browner from what you wrote at the end really didn't get it. I mean, she was somewhat contrite with the statistical data that she had presented that everything was fine.

And what's particularly sad, of course, is that one of the first decisions of Barack Obama. And I was, you know, I was a major supporter. You know, I do fundraisers. I marched all over Richmond, Virginia to get them reelected. And one of the major, from the first decisions that he made when he became president was to invite Carol Browner back to the White House. And she became the energies are for his administration. And so that was really a hard day for me to be honest with you because it was sending a signal to federal employees throughout the country that, you know, it doesn't matter what managers do to you. We will resuscitate them. We will protect them and we will bring them back into the administration because I was going to ask you are the individuals that were your supervisor and have the agency. Are they still working there? Oh, absolutely. They were all promoted. There was a slight moment right after the trial because there was so much publicity that they sent them out of EPA for a while just to let things cool down.

So one was sent to the White House, which is, you know, really a hard duty station, right? To punish him. One was sent to AID to sort of travel around the world. Another really hard, you know, punish them. And then after things come down, they brought them back and elevated them again. Looking back on this journey, had it been worth it? Yes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think we've done some, the law itself, even though we didn't get everything we wanted. It's an amazing piece of legislation. Every two years, every federal employee must take no fear training. And if you, if you enter the federal government within 90 days, you must be trained in no fear. You know, in the federal government now, when, when used to the federal government, the money is no longer, and you win. The money no longer comes out of a little flush fund that they have set up for men and women who violate people civil and human rights.

Now, when you win, when you prevail in court, the money comes out of the budget of the agency that discriminated against you. And that agency has to go to Congress and explain why their budget has been reduced by whatever amount the award is for. I mean, and the law goes on and on and on. I mean, every single federal government agency, if you, White House, CIA, State Department, EPA, you go to the front page of the no fear icon. You click on that icon and all their EEO data pops up. I had no idea when I was fighting, whether I was the only person at EPA who was having trouble, or whether there were a hundred of us. When no one ever has to wonder about that again. It's just a click away now. You click and all the data appears. Dr. Marsha Coleman, our devio, author of No Fear. We will continue our discussion on next week's program. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, email us at jhanssenhans.org.

Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Alvarez, I'm John L. Hanson Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America CDs, KUT Radio, One University Station, Austin, Texas, 78712. This has been a production of KUT Radio.