Haywood Park Community Hospital was the closest hospital for many in Brownsville, Tennessee, a rural city in the western part of the state. Some residents believe it kept their loved ones alive. But others in this majority-Black city said they drove to a hospital miles away or skipped care completely. The facility eventually closed in […]
Rural Issues
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Rural Issues
Newbern’s First Black Mayor Won in the Courts, but the Fight Is Far From Over
NEWBERN, Ala. — The sunrays beamed on Patrick Braxton’s forehead as he raised his right hand and placed his left on a Bible, held by his wife, Freda. He stood confidently, ready to execute his oath of office for all to see. That moment — on an early August afternoon — felt so familiar yet […]
Posted inNews, Rural Issues, Voting
After Years of Litigation, First Black Mayor in Rural Alabama Town Gets to Serve
Patrick Braxton is overwhelmed with gratitude. He’s been juggling a yearslong legal battle to serve as the lawful mayor of his hometown, Newbern, Alabama. After years of harassment, his rural town enters a new chapter: Its first Black mayor will finally get to serve. Braxton will be reinstated as mayor of Newbern, according to a […]
Posted inRural Issues
5-Year Legal Battle Pays Off for Black Residents Who Sued Their City for Condemning Their Properties
Joseph Askew Sr. reveled in good news on a recent Sunday afternoon. The 77-year-old retiree has been in a legal battle to keep his historic properties from being destroyed by the city officials in his hometown, Kinston, North Carolina. Already, they’ve demolished some of his properties. He contends it’s because of his race because officials […]
Posted inEminent Domain, Infrastructure, Partner Content
Black Women Say An Amtrak Project Threatens Their Baltimore Neighborhood’s Homes — and Children
Originally published by The 19th Angel St. Jean has seen big improvements to the Reservoir Hill neighborhood of Baltimore since she moved there 11 years ago. The historic, now majority-Black community had long been considered “perpetually up and coming,” she said, and parts of it had been underdeveloped for some time. In recent years, however, […]
Posted inBlack Businesses, Rural Issues
Dollar Stores Force Local Grocery Stores to Close. This Woman Opened One Anyway.
Marquitrice Mangham never imagined that she’d open a grocery store in her hometown of Webb, Mississippi. She left in the 1990s after high school. But in 2016, she inherited her family’s farm, splitting her time between the majority-Black town of fewer than 500 people in the rural Delta and her current home in Atlanta. Webb […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Infrastructure, Partner Content, Rural Issues
How Alabama Turned to Restrictive Deed Covenants to Ward Off Flooding Claims From Black Residents
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News. SHILOH COMMUNITY, Ala.—Their land is bound forever. The deeds of three homeowners — Pastor Timothy Williams, Aretha Wright, and Page Jones — all living in the historically Black Shiloh community of south Alabama, tell the tale. Restrictive covenants attached to their deeds limit the ability of current and […]
Posted inRural Issues
This City Wants to Raze Black Properties, at the Cost of Generational Wealth.
On the east side of Kinston, North Carolina, historic buildings still bear the original architecture. Whether it’s on Queen Street, where formerly enslaved people became entrepreneurs, or Gordon Street, the neighborhood’s significance is clear. The rural North Carolina town was once known as a thriving tobacco and textile manufacturing industry and the birthplace of funk […]
Posted inBlack Farmers, Economy, Food Access
A New Road Threatens to Displace a ‘Safe Haven’ for New Orleans’ Black Youth
NEW ORLEANS — As the youth group sat in its warm-up circle, Kennedy Turner, half-jokingly, scoffed at his peers. “Why didn’t y’all react to my prom photos in the group chat?” Quickly, Cionne Chase, 19, jumped in to explain that she did, in fact, react to the photos and most definitely did not deserve to […]
Posted inRural Issues, Technology
Millions May Lose Internet Benefits if Lawmakers Don’t Act
For years, Leon Hudson struggled to get high quality home internet in the countryside of Selma, Alabama. If he wanted the service, he would “have to get a petition, go to the neighborhood, and get people to sign it for them to put their stuff there,” the 50-year-old recalled last fall about what internet service […]