environmental racism
September 21, 2021 -
Chapel Hill has a reputation as a liberal town, but it's always been a racially unjust society — in large part because of the actions of the University of North Carolina, the nation's oldest public university. The same school that once denied clean water to its Black workers and their families now dumps toxic coal plant pollution on them.
July 23, 2021 -
In 1982, a rural, Black North Carolina community suffered damages from a timber company's careless aerial application of toxic pesticides. The fight that ensued with state authorities led to local resident Billie Lee Rogers becoming a lifelong advocate for pesticide safety and environmental justice. Rogers passed away in June, and we share pesticide safety advocate Allen Spalt's remarks about her life and work delivered at her memorial service.
October 23, 2020 -
Across the rural South's Black Belt, the lack of adequate sewage and water infrastructure has created serious public health problems. We spoke with Catherine Coleman Flowers, a longtime environmental justice activist in rural Alabama and the recent recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, about her work to draw attention to the region's intersecting crises and how grassroots activism can impact federal policy.
April 24, 2020 -
A decade after the BP oil spill set off an environmental health disaster in communities across the Gulf Coast, the company and the rest of the U.S. oil and gas industry continue to inflict pain on vulnerable populations across the South — and they're now implicated in raising the death rate from the novel coronavirus in African-American communities across Louisiana.
September 20, 2018 -
The pain and suffering caused by disasters do not affect all communities equally.
March 2, 2018 -
In her work as an organizer and co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Naeema Muhammad battles against environmental racism alongside targeted groups who have been inspired to speak up for themselves.
July 16, 2015 -
This week the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice filed suit over government violations of civil rights laws in communities including Tallassee, Alabama and Beaumont, Texas.
