Voices from the Gulf

Showing stories 71 through 80 of 818 total stories.

Originally posted in New American Journal on May 13th

MOBILE, Ala. – Thoroughbreds charging around the final turn and down the homestretch. Blinders strapped on the sides of their faces to keep their attention on the finish line straight ahead. Preakness Stakes at Pimlico racetrack in Baltimore. Second leg of the Triple Crown later this week.

Image:  Horse and Human Blinders, by Walter Simon

In the southwestern corner of Africatown, wedged between two sections of freshly cut new lumber produced by one of Mobile's most successful lumber companies, sits the remains of Africatown's Lewis Quarters. Lewis Quarters was aptly named because it was founded by and inhabited by descendants of Cudjoe Lewis, the youngest of the last shipment of slaves to be brought into this country in 1860. Lewis Quarters is just north of the deepest part of the Three Mile Creek and at one time encompassed all of that section of Africatown.

On Monday, April 20th, Gulf Coast fisherfolk, residents, and artists gathered at BP's Houston headquarters to speak out about the ongoing impacts of the BP oil disaster. Advocates said fisheries and the communities that depend on them are in serious decline. “When BP says it has done right for the Gulf, they are lying,” said Thao Vu* of Biloxi, Mississippi, "Less than 18% of the health claims submitted have been approved and even fewer have actually been paid out. While BP plays games with our media and with our court system, our fishing families are sick and suffering.”

"So let it be written, so let it be done." Let history record that much like the Freedom Riders came down from the North to help Southerners in their Civil Rights struggle during the 60's, students from Oberlin College near Cleveland, Ohio traveled 1000 miles to help residents of Africatown in Mobile, Alabama in their ongoing quest for economic and environmental justice as well as social respect. 

In January, the fourth Extreme Energy Extraction Summit came to Biloxi, Mississippi, and brought with it organizers and activists from across North America who face issues such as coal mining and mountaintop removal in Appalachia, uranium mining in New Mexico, fracking in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, and tar sands mining in Canada. To kick-off the gathering, Cherri Foytlin with Bridge The Gulf organized a day-long tour that grounded participants in some of the extreme energy challenges facing Gulf Coast communities.

More than 500 years ago, before the arrival of the first Europeans, vast civilizations flourished in what is now called the Americas.

Trade routes and commerce had long been established across the Rockies and the Andes, from the farthest northern to the farthest southern regions of the Americas. It has been said that this was the time of union for Indigenous Peoples, the time of the Condor and the Eagle.

The Condor represents the Indigenous Peoples of the south, while the Eagle represents the Indigenous Peoples of the north.

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