Alabama is becoming fertile ground for the dilution of Black voters’ political power, experts say. Last week, the state’s Republican leaders refused to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s order to redraw a congressional map to include two majority-Black districts. Gov. Kay Ivey approved a map with just one majority-Black district. While Black Alabamians make […]
Alabama
Posted inPartner Content, Transportation
Birmingham Public Transit Inches Forward With Federal Help, and No State Funding
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — When she was a child in Charleston, S.C., Marva Douglas remembers she had to ride in the back of the bus to visit the zoo, museum, […]
Posted inRural Issues
A Black Man Was Elected Mayor in Rural Alabama, but the White Town Leaders Won’t Let Him Serve
NEWBERN, Ala. — There’s a power struggle in Newbern, Alabama, and the rural town’s first Black mayor is at war with the previous administration who he says locked him out of Town Hall. After years of racist harassment and intimidation, Patrick Braxton is fed up, and in a federal civil rights lawsuit he is accusing […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How Biden’s Goal to ‘Electrify Everything’ Contributed to a Flooding Crisis
Sometimes, even when it’s not raining, 78-year-old widower Willie Horstead Jr. thinks he hears the floodwaters seeping beneath his home, sucking the metal box deeper into Alabama’s rich soil. When it does rain – which is often in Coffee County, Alabama – the U.S. Army veteran is afraid he’ll fall through the floor of his […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Supreme Court Upholds Voting Rights Act in Victory for Black Political Power
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday delivered a ruling that protects Black voting power, shocking court watchers who feared that the court’s conservative majority would use the case to further weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In its 5-4 Allen v. Milligan decision, the bench affirmed a lower court ruling that said that Alabama’s […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
This U.S. Supreme Court Case Could Reshape Black Political Power
To read about how the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Allen v. Milligan, check out Capital B’s story here. Allen v. Milligan hasn’t captured quite as much attention as other cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bench’s decision — expected in the coming weeks — could have a seismic impact on Black political […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Water Quality
Alabama Discriminated Against Black Residents, Feds Confirm
For the first time in U.S. history, the Justice Department has concluded an environmental justice inquiry through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, determining that the state of Alabama and Lowndes County discriminated against Black residents for decades. The findings from the investigation have led to an agreement involving the Alabama Department of Public Health […]
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 inPolitics & Policy
Five States Are Voting Whether to Outlaw Slavery (Yep, You Read That Right)
Update: Four states — Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon and Vermont — voted Nov. 8 to amend their constitution to close the “slavery loophole,” an exception clause that legalized the treatment of convicted individuals like slaves. Polling showed the measure failed in Louisiana, but the results were expected by voting rights activists, who were concerned that the […]