Across a rural pocket of cotton and soybean fields in northeast Louisiana, Meta, the eighth most profitable company in the world, is attempting to build America’s largest data center. The project, which is located in Richland Parish, an area home to three times as many residents as the national average, has seen its anticipated investments […]
Adam Mahoney
Adam Mahoney is the climate and environment reporter at Capital B. He can be reached by email at adam.mahoney@capitalbnews.org, on Bluesky, and on X at @AdamLMahoney.
Posted inExtreme Weather, Infrastructure, Politics & Policy
From Memphis to Gary, Black Communities Are Being Left in the Dark
In the pews of a Memphis, Tennessee, church on Monday morning, the Rev. Earle J. Fisher wasn’t getting a headstart on next Sunday’s sermon, he was preparing a resource hub. “This can’t be my normal Monday because like so many others, we’re without power,” said Fisher, who teaches at LeMoyne-Owen College, an HBCU in Memphis. […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
In Roseland, an Oil Disaster Leaves Black Parents Asking How to Keep Their Kids Safe
ROSELAND, Louisiana — As a young boy in the 1960s, almost every weekend Elbert McGee walked a half-mile with his father through the wooded streets of Roseland to the Tangipahoa River. There, he learned to swim and fish for bass, crappie, and the occasional catfish. “We had a good, good life as children,” McGee said, […]
Posted inCourts, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Trump Ordered to Release Billions in Climate Grants Meant for Black Communities
Dominika Parry never stopped fighting for Jackson, Mississippi, residents even after the Trump administration terminated a multibillion-dollar program last year meant to help the Black city still reeling from a water crisis. For years, if water did flow out of Black households’ faucets in Jackson at all, it was often brown. It left elders and […]
Posted inBlack Farmers, Health, Politics & Policy
After Cyclospora Outbreak, Local Black Farms See Rise in Support
This summer, it has felt like the flow of Black folks and families arriving at Deep Roots CPS Farm in Charlotte, North Carolina, has never let up, said Cherie Jzar, the farm’s managing director. They’re in search of something that has become harder to find in the grocery aisle: certainty. They’re asking about lettuce — […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Data Center Surge Worsens Electricity Costs for Black Families
In the sweltering Alabama heat, where a trailer home can feel like an oven during each new heat wave, Esther Calhoun’s electricity bill has doubled in recent years. On a fixed income of about $1,300 a month, the 63‑year‑old Calhoun now pays roughly $350 monthly for electricity in rural Alabama. President Donald Trump came into […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Politics & Policy, Redevelopment, Transportation
From the South to the Coasts, New Highways Are Threatening Black Land
Timothy Williams’ family has lived in the same community for over 150 years, but he is afraid that they are one big storm away from losing it all. Eight years ago, the Alabama Department of Transportation widened the highway that runs just a few yards from Williams’ home in Shiloh. Since then, every time it […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
As Wildfire Smoke Chokes the Northeast Again, Black Communities Are at Risk
The skies over New York City turned a hazy orange and grey again this week. Reminiscent of when the skies turned a deep orange in 2023 — and then again in 2024 — this reality is quickly becoming a normal summer occurrence. More than 850 wildfires are actively burning across Canada, with more than 180 […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Religion
Meta’s $250B Louisiana Data Center Is the Most Expensive in U.S.
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 inArts & Entertainment, Criminal Justice, Violence Against Women
How ‘Is God Is’ Is Changing the Conversation About Black Women and Domestic Violence
NEW ORLEANS — When Gretta Gordy Gardner was a prosecutor, she asked a domestic violence victim’s mother why she had testified for the man who hurt her daughter. The answer stopped her cold: It’s better to have a man who beats you than no man at all. “That made me understand the survivor so much […]
