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 […]
Los Angeles
Posted inClimate Change, Public Safety
Why Were Black Altadena Residents Not Warned to Evacuate in Time?
A faint glow flickered behind the canyon ridges, and at first, it felt like a threat no different from fires past. Inside one home, Erliene Kelley, an 83-year-old grandmother, believed, as it had always gone over her 57 years in Altadena, that it would never roll down the hill toward homes. This time, however, the […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Health, Money, Public Safety
Generational Black Homes in LA Reduced to Ash Amid Growing Wildfires
Support Black-Led, Nonprofit News Capital B is an independent news organization uncovering important stories — like this one — about how Black people experience America today. But we can’t tell these stories without your help. If you support our mission, please consider becoming a member by making a tax-deductible donation. Sixty-two years burned to ashes for […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather, Incarceration
‘We Need Everyone’: How Two Formerly Incarcerated Firefighters Are Building a Movement
This story originally published in 2022, but has been updated to reflect the recent fires ravaging neighborhoods across Los Angeles County. On Jan. 8, 2025, deadly fires tore through Los Angeles County, fueled by hurricane-force winds. The Eaton and Palisades Fires, two of the most destructive in California’s history, burned about 60 square miles within […]
Posted inCourts, Housing, Policing, Politics & Policy
Black Unhoused Communities Targeted After Supreme Court Ruling
LOS ANGELES – On a dirt pocket between a sidewalk and freeway in the Wilmington neighborhood in South Los Angeles, roughly half a dozen people lived in tents for most of the summer. But by 7 a.m. on Sept. 24, three police SUVs and a bright orange truck lined the street next to the freeway […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Wealth Gap
‘As Goes California, Goes The Rest Of The Country,’ Except On Black Reparations
Through a series of films in the 1990s, from Boyz n the Hood to Menace II Society and Friday, the perception of Black Los Angeles became ingrained in the minds of people of all backgrounds across the nation. Palm trees and hood politics became synonymous with the neighborhoods. But in a rarity, the films also […]
Posted inHousing
In Brooklyn, a New Homeless Shelter Reignites Decades of Racism
Thirty-five years ago this month, 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins hopped off the 20th Avenue subway in Bensonhurst, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, to view a used car for sale. He would never make it back home. At the time, the neighborhood was primarily Italian and known for being a place where Black people were not welcomed. Shortly […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
Reform Rollbacks May Lead to Another Rise in Mass Incarceration
LaNaisha Edwards was 15 when she started going to funerals in the mid-1990s. By her senior year, getting dressed for another memorial service “became the normal thing to do — sadly” in Los Angeles, she said. By September 2010, the plague of gun violence that destroyed other families hit too close to home. Her 24-year-old […]
Posted inCulture, Sports
Racism Pervades College Sports. It’s Taking an Alarming Toll on Athletes.
LOS ANGELES — Sometimes, fans would hurl the N-word. Other times, they’d tell her how much she looked like a man. Occasionally, in less of a low blow, they’d talk down to her, calling her “girl.” The slurs are not uncommon to Koi Love. Playing college basketball in the Southeastern Conference meant traveling to majority white […]
Posted inTransportation
The Movement to Make Black Neighborhoods Better for Walking and Biking
Dijon Kizzee’s last living act was riding his bike on the wrong side of a residential road in Westmont, Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhood. In Black neighborhoods where car congestion is routine, protected bike lanes are lacking, and blocked sidewalks are expected, riding on the sidewalk or against traffic is a regular practice. It’s used as […]