Social and Economic Justice

The article below orginally appeared in ColorLines earlier this week. A federal jury convicted five current or former New Orleans police officers of civil rights violations. [...Read more]

The article below originally appeared on the New Orleans Tribune/Tribune Talk website last week.  The defense rested its case in the Danziger Bridge police violence trial, insisting the victims [...Read more]

By Monique Harden and Nathalie Walker, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights. As the Administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (“GCCF”), Kenneth Feinberg has denied all illness claims from the BP oil drilling disaster for lack of medical proof of causation.  However, Feinberg did not require such proof in his administration of the Agent O [...Read more]

The article below originally appeared on the New Orleans Tribune/Tribune Talk website last week. The prosecution rested its case this week in the Danziger Bridge police violence trial with one final witness testimony, perhaps the most moving. [...Read more]

 This new statement by the  Women’s Health & Justice Initiative condemns the irresponsible and demeaning use of drug testing to police the lives of welfare recipients.  We urge you to use the statement, and credit us, when addressing these intersecting issues, even if your political work is not centered around low-income women or women of color.  [...Read more]

On a beautiful late afternoon in early May, Dedrick Benison and Michael Calvin are quietly surveying the house that came crashing down around them just a week before.  On April 27th they were watching a movie here, a neighbor’s house on the catfish farm where the men live and work, near Forkland, Alabama.  Moments later a tornado collapsed the roof and ripped off the kitchen wall, sending furniture and splintered wood flying. [...Read more]

“I hate disasters,” Derrick Evans has said grumpily and repeatedly over the past several days.  As a resident of coastal Mississippi and a Gulf Coast advocate, Evans has been through situations like this before – Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, BP, to name a few.  [...Read more]

In a few short weeks the public view will, without doubt, fall back upon the coast and her people. We must take clear and insurmountable advantage of this. We must decide that this will be our stand.

My dear fellow citizens,

Nearly a year has passed now since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. This year has been without doubt devastating to those of us in the Gulf States, as well as to those across our country.
 
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All individuals have the right to equality, equal opportunity, fair treatment and an environment free of pollutants. What we have seen in the Gulf, and around the world, is an infringement upon both our civil rights and our human rights.  So the question is: What are you going to do about it?

To the people of the United States of America: [...Read more]

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Crossposted from Facing South. [...Read more]