Celebrating a local community that took on Mickey Mouse and won.
The film explores how, in the 1990’s, The Walt Disney Company unveiled plans for a new theme park in Haymarket, Virginia, near some of the most significant battlefields of the Civil War. Originally the plan was hailed by state government officials as a boon to the State of Virginia. Soon, however, local residents, regional environmentalists and national Civil War historians came to realize that the promise of new jobs and the shine of the Disney brand were masking the many ways in which a multi-billion dollar development on historic ground on the edge of the DC metropolitan region was a bad idea.
Against a 75 percent public approval rating, a small team of residents and advocates joined forces and mounted a campaign to convince Disney and the State of Virginia that these rural and sacred lands were not the appropriate site for a "Disney’s American History" theme park. In less than a year, these advocates had flipped public approval to only 25 percent. In the face of this mounting opposition, Disney withdrew its plans on September 28, 1994.
Learn more about the story from this 2013 Piedmont Environmental Council article.
“We are very proud of this ‘David and Goliath’ story. The odds definitely were against us. Opposed by powerful development interests, our small coalition stopped the Disney Corporation in their tracks. Eventually we achieved the permanent protection of important historic sites and of rural lands from intense development. There are many lessons in this tale.” ”