Race and Civil Rights
March 26, 2014 -
Watchdog groups are raising concerns about calls to move coal ash from wet impoundments into dry landfills, warning of inevitable leakage from landfills that are typically located in low-income and minority communities. Instead, they propose storing the waste above ground in concrete vaults on power plant property.
March 21, 2014 -
Amid Republican-led efforts in states nationwide to shrink the early voting period before Election Day, voting rights advocates scored a big victory this week in a state where the GOP enjoys a strong majority.
March 7, 2014 -
Given its tendency to contaminate water, coal ash is an obvious environmental issue. But its disproportionate impacts on low-income communities and people of color also make it a justice issue.
March 6, 2014 -
With a new poll finding North Carolina voters overwhelmingly want state officials to force Duke Energy to clean up its coal ash pits, a protest outside the governor's mansion that involved the Moral Monday movement leader turned up the heat on the McCrory administration, which is under federal investigation following the Feb. 2 spill into the Dan River.
March 5, 2014 -
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states and local governments with a history of discrimination no longer needed to submit new voting laws for federal approval. Now, voting rights advocates are trying to put them back under oversight using the courts and Congress.
March 3, 2014 -
Some people might think the UAW's recent narrow loss at the VW plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. derailed the union's organizing effort at the Nissan plant in Canton, Miss. But workers there point out that their situation -- with a majority-black workforce drawing on a civil rights legacy -- is different.
February 28, 2014 -
Known as "America's most revolutionary mayor," Jackson, Miss. Mayor Chokwe Lumumba died this week at age 66. Lumumba earned a reputation for being both practical and visionary, an effective politician who never abandoned his principles of "revolutionary transformation."
