This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with MLK50. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week. Marilyn Gooch was already skeptical about one of her newest neighbors, xAI’s supercomputing facility, when her cousin walked across the street in June with a blue mailer from the […]
Data Centers
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Partner Content
‘We Deserve to Breathe Clean Air’: Memphis Residents Take on Elon Musk’s xAI
This story was originally published by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Subscribe to their newsletter here. Easter Knox’s brick home in Boxtown has a garden, space for her dog to run and a bench under a sprawling acorn tree planted by her husband. Years ago, he built a large gazebo in the yard adjacent to theirs — a […]
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, Extreme Weather, Technology
Crypto-Mining Creates New Environmental Injustices for Black Texans
Bitcoin is more than just a shiny new way to lose money. It’s also fueling Texas’ energy struggles as the state prepares for another year of record-breaking heat. And Black communities are caught in the crosswires of climate change, those booming data centers, and the power plants needed to meet both demands. Last year, during […]
