Almost two years to the day of its last introduction, progressive leaders are reinvigorating a push to pass the Environmental Justice For All Act, a potential landmark bill that aims to address environmental disparities in majority Black, Latino and Indigenous communities. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona, the proposal hopes to address public health […]
Environmental Justice
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
How Slavery and Sharecropping Created a Sewage Crisis in Alabama’s Black Belt
In Alabama’s Black Belt, many residents have to hold their breath every time they attempt to flush their toilets because there’s a great chance that sewage will be sent back through their toilet bowls, bathtubs, and sinks. A group of environmental justice organizations filed a civil rights complaint last week against the state of Alabama, […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
A Growing Call for Climate Reparations, Explained
America is finally joining the global movement of wealthy nations agreeing to pay poorer countries for the damage they’ve endured because of climate change. To the dismay of many Republican legislators, last year the Biden administration agreed to participate in the United Nations’ fund for “loss and damage,” also known as climate reparations. Although the […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
A New Phenomenon Threatens to Disrupt Black Homeownership
As Black Americans have strived for generations to own homes — and then to afford to stay in them — a recent study has revealed a new phenomenon that threatens to disrupt Black homeownership once again. Thousands of American homes in flood-prone areas are overvalued by as much as $237 billion, making it even more […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Partner Content
Long burdened by environmental racism, activists in Memphis are turning the tide
This story was originally published by The 19th. First, the butterflies disappeared. Then, the family dog died; and then the neighbors did, too. But Marquita Bradshaw’s biggest loss of those adolescent days was probably her great-grandmother. Susie Hall died in 1995 after developing uterine and kidney cancers. “We lost our matriarch. … She was the […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
Black Americans Are Moving to Phoenix in Historic Numbers. Few Are Finding a Better Life.
This story was produced in partnership with High Country News. In late October 2012, the 80 mph winds of Hurricane Sandy pelted the tiny suburb of Pennington, New Jersey, where Brian Watson worked. Watson’s job as a fraud analyst for Bank of America Merrill Lynch required him to be on call 24/7 despite the severe […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
Air Pollution and its Impact on Black Communities, Explained
Across the country, pollution has drastically declined since the 1970s because of the Clean Air Act’s expansion, but the health impact of dirty air is still widely felt. According to the World Health Organization, air pollution is associated with 7 million premature deaths annually, with nearly 200,000 of those happening in the United States. The […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
The EPA Moves to Limit This Pollutant That Hurts Black People Disproportionately
Dail Chambers knows when the air is unsafe in her North St. Louis neighborhood. It’s when the sky “looks like a 1970s film,” she said. “There’s an orange haze over the whole neighborhood for weeks at a time.” The haze is a mixture of air pollutants anchored by a high concentration of fine-particulate matter, sometimes […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
In Brooklyn, Public Housing Tenants Struggle Against the ‘Slow Violence’ of Industrial Pollution
This story was published in partnership with The City. Sign up for their newsletter here. Elisha Fye jokes that he was a member of the “true little rascals” while growing up in the New York City Housing Authority’s Cooper Park Houses in North Brooklyn’s industrial corridor. The expansive 700-apartment housing project was erected in 1953, and Fye’s […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Environmental Justice Wins You Might Have Missed in 2022
Every year, it becomes more evident that Black communities in the U.S. are on the front lines of the climate crisis. Black communities, through decades of disinvestment and the residual effects of segregation, are at highest risk for flooding, most likely to be located next to polluting power plants, and least likely to retain housing […]