GEOFF BENNETT: Finally tonight, a story# from PBS News Student Reporting Labs,## our high school journalism training program.# They take us to a family farm in Upper Marlboro,## Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., to meet# Cameron Oglesby, who explains how her family## struggled to hold on to its land and inspired her# to want to tell stories of environmental justice.

CAMERON OGLESBY, Environmental# Justice Advocate: We're coming## up on our centenni.. This is what it's all about.

I# have received so much of my own## familial history just in sitting down# to conversations learning from my nana.

WOMAN: Look at me.

CAMERON OGLESBY: Oh, you don't know when this was?

WOMAN: Yes, we picketed in Baltimore# and downtown D.C.

at the capitol.

CAMERON OGLESBY: I remember when I was a kid,## and my nana would be going out in the garden or# she would be using her own vegetables to make## things.

I was just absolutely obsessed# with everything she was doing out here.

WOMAN: They were full of berries.

CAMERON OGLESBY: Land is wealth in this country,## and I have seen that right stripped away# from so many people for no other factor## than they are descendant of enslaved# peoples or that they are indigenous.

Some of the challenges the farm has dealt# with include my great-great-grandfather had## to sell-off portions of the land just# to maintain it.

In more recent years,## my uncle and my nana have contended with# someone trying to build a prison next door,## trying to set up facilities that would# generally reduce our quality of life.

We have been very fortunate that every attempt to# do that has been thwarted in a way that allows us## to continue to use the property as we would like# to and as we are entitled to.

I think that's## sort of the connection that helps me bring a# different perspective to the work that I do.

As an oral historian, I can point back to# my own people and say I know exactly what## you are going through, and I want to# help you protect this for yourselves.

We are archiving something that people's children# and their descendants can go back to forever.

The## Environmental Justice Oral History Project is a# repository that I founded to tell a comprehensive,## resilience-based, joy-based story of environmental# justice communities in the U.S.

South.

It's really critical that we understand# the power of storytelling to get people## riled up and to make people cry and# to give people joy and to really bring## out the emotions that undergird all movement work.

The fact that we have this untouched# property here, I can't even put into## words what it means and how unheard of# it feels.

I need to protect this place.## I need to invest in this place.

This place# needs to persist.

It is a symbol that is the## most fundamental right.

Land is wealth in this# country.

That's that generational wealth, man.

It's really solidified for me how important## it is for me to be picking up this# torch and keeping that work going.