Welcome to the town of Woodbine, Georgia. It's the end of the 1960s.
A small town in Camden County, Woodbine was selected to house the Thiokol Chemical Corporation plant, which provided ample employment opportunities to Black women in the area, who previously could only find domestic work, line work at the shrimp factory in Brunswick or field work picking rice, lettuce, etc. The jobs were well-paid at the time and allowed the women to provide for their families. On Feb. 3, 1971, the town was rocked by a chemical explosion at the plant, which ended up killing 30 people and injuring several others.
Follow along with our visual episode companion at SavannahNow.com.
Other media in this episode, including songs, newscasts and speeches were used for educational purposes.
Executive producers: Anne and Pat Longstreth, Nancy Guan, Zach Dennis
Host: Nancy Guan
Music: Andrew Sovine
Special thanks to Jannie Everette with the Thiokol Memorial Project
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.