The word “eclipse” comes from a Greek word meaning “abandonment,” but in Texas, this week’s total solar eclipse has had the polar opposite effect. An estimated 4 million tourists are expected to have flocked to the Lone Star state to see the once-in-a-generation event, which starts in the Dallas area around 1:30 p.m. CT on […]
Texas
Posted inHistory, Politics & Policy
Black Residents Battle Against Tennessee GOP’s Effort to Ban Reparations
The Rev. Earle J. Fisher, an activist and longtime resident of Memphis, Tennessee, is battling against yet another assault on Black economic and political progress by state Republicans. Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, these efforts have ramped up, particularly in majority-Black Shelby County, the largest county in the state. Just last month, […]
Posted inCulture, History
One Family’s Quest for Reparations: ‘We Owe it Gracie’
Candice Hammons’ curiosity about the history of the maternal side of her close-knit family unearthed a mystery along Texas’ Neches River. It all started with a simple ancestry test in 2018. Her niece had just completed a DNA kit from 23andMe and her excitement was contagious. For Hammons, it wasn’t just about learning where she […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
This Case Could Undermine Voting Rights and Black-Latino Political Solidarity
The only district in a Texas county where Black and Latino voters can determine election outcomes is under siege — and that county’s sole Black Democratic commissioner refuses to go down without a fight. Stephen Holmes has served since 1999, and he’s insisted that he and his constituents won’t “go quietly in the night.” Rather, […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
Moving South, Black Americans Are Weathering Climate Change
This is the fifth installment of a yearlong Capital B series on the country’s current Black migration, the most significant movement of Black people in the U.S. in 50 years. It was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Environmental and Epistemic Justice Initiative at Wake Forest University. Stephanie Roberson wasn’t expecting this phone call from […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
Why Upgrading the Nation’s Electric Grid Is a Racial Issue
Having grown up in Minnesota, the second-coldest state in the continental United States, Mia Brooks smiled at the thought of the year-round soggy Southern heat before moving to Texas. But as climate change makes summer more oppressive nationwide, it’s made Southern winters particularly more intense. Over the past two decades, the South’s winter and spring […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
Is Your Neighborhood at Risk? New Climate Risk Map Breaks Down 184 Hazards by Community
Globally, this year’s hottest summer on record was deadly, and researchers estimate that numbers will continue to rise in the United States. But those deaths aren’t equally distributed, and the disparities result from hundreds of different social, economic, and health factors, which leave Black and Indigenous people most susceptible to extreme heat. A new mapping […]
Posted inHealth, Health Equity
As Heat Scorches Texas, Lawmakers Loosen Worker Protections
Eugene Gates worked for the U.S. Postal Service for nearly 40 years before dying on his route in Dallas. On that day in mid-June, the heat index hit 115 degrees, the highest since 1980. The exact cause of death has yet to be confirmed, but his wife and others attribute it to the brutal heat […]
Posted inEducation, Higher Education
Texas’ College DEI Ban Is the Latest to ‘Turn Back the Clock on Racial Equality’
Texas’ ultimatum that its public colleges and universities either ban diversity, equity, and inclusion — or DEI — efforts or lose state funding has Black educators such as Dwonna Goldstone, the director of the African American studies program at Texas State University, on edge. Though the law goes into effect six months from now, she […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Unsafe Water
Dirty Water, Distrust, and a Crisis
Black Americans struggling to live through a water crisis are urging the rest of the country to recast what is viewed as violence. “People just don’t get the big picture,” says Brooke Floyd, coordinator for the Jackson People’s Assembly, a social justice organization in Jackson, Mississippi. “There are a lot of things that are making […]
