Gwendolyn Reed-Davis recalls living without running water during the holiday season last year, merely months after a water crisis left Jackson, Mississippi, residents struggling to bathe, cook, and flush their toilets. The mother of 12 says the city’s years-long struggle has harmed public health and threatened the development of a whole generation of children. Since […]
Texas
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
Chemical Plants Destroyed These Black Towns. The EPA Hopes New Regulations Will Help.
As the Environmental Protection Agency moves to curb the amount of cancer-causing pollution spewed out by 218 of the country’s largest oil and chemical plants, environmental leaders and Black residents in some Southern states say the proposal doesn’t go far enough. Roughly two-thirds of these plants are sprinkled across Texas and Louisiana, where many of […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Policing
What the Conviction in Atatiana Jefferson’s Death Tells Us About Police Accountability
The former police officer who killed Atatiana Jefferson while she was babysitting her then-8-year-old nephew has been sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison for the fatal shooting in Fort Worth, Texas. Aaron Dean, who is white, was convicted of manslaughter for the October 2019 shooting, which followed a non-emergency call from a concerned neighbor […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
Why It’s So Hard for Schools to Teach About Slavery
The Texas Board of Education received national attention this summer when a group of eductors proposed a monumental change to the state’s second-grade social studies curriculum: introducing slavery as “involuntary relocation.” The board rejected the proposal, but the incident is only the latest controversy surrounding how slavery is taught in American schools. Classes have held […]
