ALTADENA, Calif. — Adonis Jones’ house was gone, but the keys were still in his hand. For weeks after the fire, he carried them out of habit. They jingled in his pocket, and sometimes he twirled them between his fingers. And then, sitting in his car one evening after making the two-hour drive from Los […]
Environmental Justice
Posted inEducation, Environmental Justice, Extreme Weather
Natural Disasters Are Driving a School Crisis. Black Children Are Hit the Hardest
Adrinda Kelly watched from New York as Hurricane Katrina swallowed her hometown of New Orleans in 2005. Floodwaters rose, neighborhoods disappeared underwater, and she felt a familiar ache deepen. Her family was safe, but devastation quickly compounded a painful realization: Black children were portrayed as disposable, and New Orleans’ education system was almost completely privatized. […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
EPA Rollbacks Mean More Pollution, Less Justice for Black Communities
For a quarter of a century, a Black neighborhood in Beaumont, Texas, where Chris Jones lives has been the subject of two federal civil rights investigations by the Environmental Protection Agency that explore the role of race in his community’s disproportionately high levels of air pollution. In San Francisco, Kamillah Ealom’s neighborhood has been the […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Policies Undermine Recovery in Black Disaster Zones
For two months, hundreds of workers have cleared smoldering, toxic ashes in Altadena, California, removing what remains of a historic Black neighborhood. All the while, many don’t know how much longer they’ll be in the country. Since Hurricane Katrina, undocumented immigrants have been the backbone of America’s disaster recovery system, trailing nature’s fury from hurricanes […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Unsafe Water
Millions Face Toxic Water as Trump Reverses Key Environmental Reforms
Less than a year ago, the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency unveiled the first national plan to remove lead pipes and limit the levels of harmful chemicals in drinking water — and they chose to do so in front of Black North Carolinians. For decades, residents in the Tar Heel State have been concerned by […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Technology
America’s Digital Demand Threatens Black Communities with More Pollution
Ninety years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and South Carolina Gov. Ibra Blackwood worked together to bring electricity to rural South Carolina. But to build the power plant that would make it happen, they destroyed the homes of 900 Black sharecropping families. With them, 6,000 graves — including those of formerly enslaved people — were […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Why Saving This Stop on the Underground Railroad Is an Act of Climate Justice
In 2023, Capital B profiled the film festival opening of The Aunties, a short film about a Black couple who own and preserve Harriet Tubman’s family lands. On Monday, February 17, 2025, the film publicly premiered on the Black Public Media YouTube Channel for Black History Month. On murky nights, when dullness stole the sky […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, History
A Black Family Now Owns the Site of America’s Largest Slave Revolt
ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST PARISH, La. — Growing up, Dayna James never thought she’d willingly step foot on a plantation, let alone thank God for one. On an early Saturday morning last month, she joined about 80 other people to commemorate America’s largest slave revolt at the Woodland plantation in LaPlace, Louisiana, where nearly 500 […]
Posted inClimate Change, Housing, Wealth Gap
In Altadena, Black Households Were Most Likely to Burn, Study Finds
The Jones family lost their home of 55 years on Altadena’s foothills. They were far from the only ones. The Eaton Fire that exploded in early January tore through more than 9,000 structures in the heart of Altadena, devastating a historically Black neighborhood that had persevered for generations through discrimination and, more recently, gentrification. A […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather, Politics & Policy, Wealth Gap
Severe Weather Is Increasing the Cost of Living for Black Americans
As Los Angeles battled its largest wildfires in history, parts of the southern U.S. faced a very different kind of disaster — record-breaking snowstorms not seen in over 125 years. In LA, the Benn family didn’t lose their home to the flames, but they did lose access to their livelihood. Their screen-printing business, which they’ve […]