Copyright © 2025 by Beyond Plastics. This excerpt originally appeared in The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late, published by The New Press. Reprinted here with permission. Debra Ramirez lives at a place where survival and sacrifice meet. She knows the winding back roads that crisscross […]
Louisiana
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Religion
Meta’s AI Data Center Sparks a Crisis in the Bible Belt Over the Power of Faith
Photo illustrations by Alexandra Watts/Capital B RICHLAND PARISH, Louisiana — Seen as far as 2 miles away, a white cross — the size of a 12-story building — welcomes you to this largely forgotten stretch of Delta country. While cotton no longer runs supreme here, every road, ballot measure, and industrial promise still has to […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
These Louisiana Voters Are Standing Up to Save Voting Rights Across America
WASHINGTON — Living in North Baton Rouge is like being on the wrong side of the tracks, Martha Davis said. There are potholes everywhere that make you feel as if you’re driving on a washboard, southeastern Louisiana residents are still reeling from the loss of medical facilities, and the area has some of the lowest-performing […]
Posted inMental Health
Kyren Lacy’s Death at 24 Sheds Light on Black Male Suicide Crisis
Kyren Lacy was a 6-foot-2 Southeastern Conference football player with a broad, if often absent, smile, a love for Buffalo Wild Wings and lemonade. Some sports analysts even predicted that the Louisiana State University senior might go to a National Football League team as early as the second round of the draft this year. Instead, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Culture, Higher Education
Hazing Death Prompts Soul-Searching for Divine Nine
The calls, texts and emails have been pouring in. Since news broke in late February that a 20-year-old student at Southern University died in what police called “a fraternity hazing incident,” messages and voicemails continue to fill the inbox of filmmaker Byron Hurt. Hurt heard from some of these same people three years ago, when […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
An Explosion Left a Black Town Contaminated. Politics Are Stunting the Cleanup.
On the banks of the Tangipahoa River in South Louisiana, thick oil slicks and chemical odors ripple across the water. Five weeks after an oil and lubricant facility exploded, sending oily soot as far as 40 miles away, Black residents still complain that the chemical smell is so strong that it wakes them up in […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather, Politics & Policy
How a $5 Billion Federal Project Could Sink the Lower Ninth Ward Forever
Willie Calhoun knows how to live with water. His home, cradled between the Mississippi River and a patchwork of canals, is split by the surging, ever-present current. But it wasn’t always that way in the Ninth Ward. Before the largest canal known as the Industrial Canal was built, the stretch of land between the river […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Soot, Sickness, and Silence: A Black Louisiana Community Is Still Struggling After an Explosion
ROSELAND, La. — For 11 days after an oil and lubricant factory blew up less than a mile from her home, Millie Simmons could not stand outside for more than 10 minutes at a time. “I could hardly breathe,” the 58-year-old child care worker said outside her home on Sept. 4. Soot and an oily […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
Explosion at Louisiana Oil Plant Leaves Black Community Coated in Toxic Fallout
ROSELAND, La. — Tyreik Taylor had barely wiped the oil from his hands when the sky behind him lit up. Fifteen minutes after the 26-year-old drove home, a roar thundered from the plant where he helped mix chemicals for motor oil and had just punched out. Fire consumed the air, the collapsing metal groaning and […]
Posted inEducation, History
The Forgotten Girls Who Desegregated New Orleans Before Ruby Bridges
This is the first story in our series chronicling the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In November 1960, three 6-year-old Black girls climbed 18 steps into history, forever changing the face of American education and democracy. While Ruby Bridges became a household name for integrating William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Gail Etienne, Leona […]