Voices from the Gulf

I am a community organizer with Steps Coalition, a grass roots social justice organization in Biloxi, Mississippi.  In 2014, we were invited by a group of residents living in the Cherokee subdivision to help support their organizing efforts to reduce their exposure to industrial pollution.  The subdivision is located near Bayou Casotte Industrial Complex in Pascagoula, which houses the largest Chevron refinery in the world, two sandblasting and paint operations, two chemical plants, and a BP processing plant and gas exporting facility. 

Community Blight can normally be cleared up in two ways: by restoring the structure considered as blight or by tearing it down. Typically, it is easier and cheaper to tear something down than to repair it.

The Africatown Community is different than most African - American Communities because about 50 percent of the community has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and should be protected and restored at all costs.

Originally posted in New American Journal on December 13th

MOBILE, Ala. – If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the Paris climate conference just built an eight-lane freeway to Hades.

On December 7, 2015, while participating in events surrounding the 21st Conference of Parties regarding Climate Change (COP21), I had the opportunity to join a group that included an artist, several documentarians, activists, and Gulf Coast front line leaders Juan and Bryan Parras, in visiting The Jungle - a “refugee camp” in Calais, France.