Bright pink and soft blue bubble letters stretch across the brick façade of the now-closed New Angel of Faith Missionary Baptist Church. The graffiti spreads across the building’s red brick and glass block windows, facing south toward Fifth Avenue, where cars and trucks rumble along the one-way street. Graffiti has long been a familiar sight […]
Indiana
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration
Indiana Man Seeks Clemency With Help From Jury Foreperson
After spending more than three decades in prison, Kofi Modibo Ajabu believed he had exhausted all legal avenues to reduce his 240-year sentence. Ajabu was a college student when he was convicted along with two other men in the March 1994 stabbing deaths of two Indiana teenagers and one of their friends in what prosecutors […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Living in Industry’s Shadow: How Black Communities Are Left Behind by EPA Cuts
From Gary, Indiana’s steel mills to the oil refineries of Beaumont, Texas, and the toxic waste sites in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point, Black communities across the country are living with the harsh realities of industrial pollution. As the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations are rolled back, efforts to address these toxic hazards in these areas […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Health, Maternal Health
Toxic Air and a Maternal Mortality Crisis in America’s Steel Town
This series was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship. Kimmie Gordon sat in her car, watching the sky darken as she waited for her 15-year-old son, Kaleb, to finish football practice. It is one of five sports her teenager plays despite living with chronic asthma. Over an hour stretched on, but […]
Posted inInside Capital B
Capital B Names Gary Editor
Capital B is heading to Gary, Indiana, and we’re thrilled to announce that Javonte Anderson will lead our newest local newsroom as Gary editor. Anderson is a Gary native and started his career at his hometown newspaper, the Post-Tribune, which covers northwest Indiana. There, Anderson displayed early talents for shoe-leather reporting and vivid writing. He […]