The number one question everyone has asked me since my walk to Washington D.C. is, “How are your feet?” They are fairly good. Although I do still get the “hikers wobble,” usually early in the morning or if I sit too long.
Just a week after the anniversary of the nation’s greatest oil disaster, Congress is set to vote on legislation to open up virtually all federal waters to drilling, while cutting governmental oversight and safety measures at the same time.
That’s sort of like telling the designer of the Titanic to forget about the icebergs and just build more ships. Full speed ahead!
Like Holt-Peterson Road near John Wathen's place outside Tuscaloosa, I have seen total destruction in nearby Alberta City and Crescent Ridge Road, in Birmingham's African-American community of Pratt City (approximately 7,000 homes), and elsewhere.
The question that folks who want to volunteer or send relief must begin to ask is not "how hard was xx hit?", but "where is there NOT a steady flow (or even an over-abundance) of relief?"
On the day before Easter, Shirley Tillman and her husband were driving on the beach road of Pass Christian, MS, when she spotted something odd. There by the shoreline was a small wooden cross, a lone monument someone had planted in the sand. She told her husband to pull over so she could get a closer look, grabbed her camera and headed to the beach.
Washington D.C., our nation’s capital; The land of big embassies, big politics, big corporations, and don’t forget, big polluters. On April 15th -18th, Washington D.C. was also home to Power Shift 2011, a youth climate summit and organizer trainer.
More than 60 miles north of the flashy beach casinos of Biloxi, MS, you come to a place where the earth turns to reddish clay and the lush green fields are stripped of their timber. It’s a place where locals struggle with high unemployment in the most poverty stricken state in the country. The lifespan of an African American born today in Mississippi is the same as an average American in 1960.
By Greg Bright with Lara Naughton, crossposted from The Huffington Post. I spent 27 ½ years in Angola prison as an innocent person. When I walked out of prison, to be honest, compensation was the furthest thing from my mind. I was just happy to be free.
But seven years after proving my innocence, I haven't received an apology or a dime.
Thanks to BP and Kenneth Feinberg, the fisherman and their wives of Alabama's coastal Coden community are still faced with standing in food give-out lines one year after the BP Oil Spill. This should make BP, Mr. Feinberg and our elected officials very proud to be in America. Will this be our community celebration two years later? Standing in a food give-out line because our gulf waters are still polluted with oil?