McIntosh, Alabama – Andy Lang, dressed all in black and wearing a cap, is on Highway 43, heading to McIntosh High School.

Like Lang, most of the town’s 250 residents graduated from the school and today many are gathering there for the homecoming parade.

As the car heads south towards the school, it passes a turnoff that leads to the sprawling sites of the two chemical and pesticide-producing companies residents say have left a lasting mark on this small community.

Lang, a contract pipefitter who’s worked for the past 30 years maintaining one of the sites and other nearby manufacturing facilities, has lived in this poor, predominantly Black community in Washington County, southern Alabama, his entire life.

Many of the town’s residents attend the annual homecoming parade [Elizabeth DeRamus/Al Jazeera]
At the school – a run-down red brick building with broken windows – Lang makes his way through the crowd. The smell of roasting pork fills the air as fans plugged into portable generators battle the stifling humidity.

Lang seems to know everyone – the alumni tending to the smoking grills on the lawn; the teachers in their T-shirts bearing the school’s purple demon mascot; even the teenagers lounging in lawn chairs. Some of them call him “Mayor”. The nickname suits the 60-year-old, who has been working to gain the community’s trust as he seeks accountability from the chemical companies on their doorstep.