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This piece was copublished with The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics policy and power.

The word “Black” has been almost completely removed from a package of bills that have long been viewed as Congress’ main legislative vehicle to address the Black maternal health crisis, frustrating some advocates who feel Black women are being erased from the policy.

The key change this year is the title. The Momnibus Act — filed in mid-March — was called the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act in 2023; before that it was the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021 and the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2020. None of the previous packages, which were championed by Democrats, have been enacted.

But references to “Black” in the package’s legislative text have also evolved. The 2020 version has more than a dozen, primarily referencing Black women. In the 2021 version, many of those were replaced with nearly a dozen references to “Black pregnant and postpartum individuals.” All those descriptions were removed in the 2023 bill, with the word Black appearing only once across the entire package, referencing a historically Black college or university or other minority-serving institution. Those 2023 changes carried over to the latest version.

The legislation — which does not appear to have a path forward in the Republican-controlled Congress — has long been touted as a way to address the United States’ abysmal maternal health mortality rates, as well as the stark disparities for Black women. Maternal mortality rates in the United States surpass all other developed nations. In 2023, there were 18.6 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in the nation. The rate is far worse for Black women at 50.3; they are nearly three times more likely to die than white women from a pregnancy-related cause, irrespective of income or education.

But removing “Black” from the title of the bill comes as the Trump administration attacks initiatives aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion. Advocates worry that the title change is both a signal that racial disparities shouldn’t be at the forefront of discussion — and a warning sign that they won’t be addressed.

Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois, a lead sponsor of the Momnibus package, said the title change reflected how people describe the legislation, which this year covers everything from the perinatal workforce to research investments.

“When people are like, ‘What’s going on with the Momnibus? Has the Momnibus passed? I’m looking for information on the Momnibus,’ or whatever — this reflects that,” said the congresswoman, who emphasized that the bill continues to help Black women. She also highlighted that the Black Maternal Health Caucus that she helps oversee has secured hundreds of millions of dollars for maternal health policies that center Black women.

For some, the changes and the explanation behind it are more complicated. The 19th spoke with leaders of more than a half dozen groups that work to improve Black maternal health, many who have not spoken publicly about this.

“There is a painful irony in a bill that originated as the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, that was named to address the Black maternal health crisis, no longer naming the population it was created to serve,” Angela D. Aina, cofounder and executive director of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), said in a statement. The group is not publicly supporting the Momnibus package this year but has in past years.

Several advocates also said they’re frustrated but still support Underwood, a Black woman who often speaks about Black maternal health through a personal lens. When the bill was reintroduced, Aza Nedhari, president and CEO of Mamatoto Village, which supports Black maternal health policies, frankly detailed her thoughts on the changes in a LinkedIn post. Yet she understands that there are lots of forces at play.

“I do think that Congresswoman Underwood genuinely cares about this issue,” Nedhari told The 19th. “She’s been working on this for so long. I think we need to put the focus on where it needs to be: Why does she even have to make this choice in the first place?”

A spokesperson for Underwood said removing the word Black from most of the legislation in 2023 was due to technical edits related to the Kira Johnson Act, a bill in the Momnibus package named after a Black woman who died in 2016 in the hours after childbirth. The legislation encourages investments in community-based organizations that support mothers.

Though it has not been enacted, aspects of the bill have been implemented through congressional funding directed to the Office of Minority Health under the Department of Health and Human Services. These appropriations, first approved under the Biden administration, total more than $30 million to date. Underwood’s spokesperson said removing the word Black in 2023 aligned the legislative text with language used by the Office of Minority Health to avoid future regulatory hiccups under existing regulations.

Some of the references to Black people were replaced with “demographic groups with elevated rates of maternal mortality, severe maternal morbidity, maternal health disparities, or other adverse perinatal or childbirth outcomes.” The latest bill also links to a formal definition for “racial and ethnic minority groups” that includes Black people. 

“The definitions in the bill are designed to make sure that the money can get to the communities that need it,” Underwood told The 19th, who emphasized the substance of the bill has not changed and has been expanded to encourage more research funding.

The bill retains language aimed at addressing data collection of Hispanic people and has provisions acknowledging Indigenous populations.

“BMMA supports those provisions and the communities they serve, and we recognize the importance of that specificity. The asymmetry is what gave us pause,” Aina said.

Several organizers told The 19th they raised their concerns about the bill’s title and text changes privately to Underwood.

At least some advocates were aware of the 2023 changes at the time but supported the legislation because of the political and social climate under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, both vocal supporters of Black maternal health policies.

But since then, President Donald Trump has targeted the Office of Minority Health for elimination amid efforts aimed at dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion. 

When asked if the bill’s title change is related to the political climate, Underwood responded: “The Momnibus does talk about the Black maternal health crisis. So it is not accurate to say that the Momnibus has removed references to Black and it doesn’t aim to address the Black maternal health crisis.”

Underwood’s explanation — which doesn’t appear to acknowledge the text changes — is unsettling for Nourbese Flint, president of All* Above All, a national organization that supports reproductive justice by expanding abortion access. Flint’s organization is weighing whether to support the legislation this year.

“It suggests that there’s something wrong with it being about Black women,” she said. “I think that is the piece that I am really concerned about, is that there’s nothing wrong with having a bill that is trying to close the gap for Black women dying.”

Underwood reiterated that the Momnibus legislation is the signature bill from the Black Maternal Health Caucus, which she has co-chaired since its launch in 2019. The Momnibus package also still has the support of hundreds of groups, companies and affiliations.

“Our number one singular priority is advancing the Momnibus, period,” she said. “That has not changed. That has always been the case.”

The National Partnership for Women & Families, which advocates for policies that improve maternal health and tracks state-level Momnibus efforts, is among the groups no longer supporting the legislation. 

“The National Partnership for Women & Families firmly believes that the need to address the Black maternal health crisis is urgent and that the commitment to addressing this crisis effectively begins with clearly naming the problem,” Jocelyn Frye, president of the group, said in a statement. “At a time when this administration too often refuses to confront the prevalence of racial disparities — and in some cases denying they exist altogether — it is more important than ever to center those most affected.”

Jamila K. Taylor is president and CEO at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a national think tank that examines gender and racial inequities from an economic lens. The group has endorsed the Momnibus in the past but has not this year — but it is supporting some of the individual bills that make up the package.

“We are in the midst of a fraught social and political moment as a nation. People of color, and Black women in particular, are facing diminished political power, disproportionate job loss, and poorer health outcomes — including higher maternal death rates than their White peers,” Taylor said in a statement to The 19th. “It is more important than ever to center the needs of Black women in the policy solutions to address racial biases and injustices.”

Frye and Taylor said separately that they hope to keep working with Underwood and other members of Congress to make progress on Black maternal health issues.

Underwood declined to comment on the views of advocates or private concerns in a follow-up inquiry to her office.

Trump’s attacks on DEI have had a ripple effect across corporations, research grants and college campuses. Recent federal cuts to Medicaid, which accounts for 40 percent of all live births and 65 percent of births to Black mothers, are expected to worsen health outcomes for pregnant and postpartum people.

It’s part of why changes to the bill may be so concerning for some advocates, said Deva Woodly, a professor at Brown University who studies the impact of public discourse on social and economic issues. She said the changes — even if some predate Trump’s return to office — could lessen the efficacy of the bills if they’re passed.

“There is no race-neutral way to address Black maternal mortality. It has to be addressed honestly and unabashedly, and trying to address it in a way that does not name the subject is going to be inefficacious,” she said. “Because if you leave the language cloudy, then it can be misapprehended and deliberately misused by whomever is in power and enforcing the law.”

Woodly offered a hypothetical scenario in which a women’s health bill makes its way through Congress over several years but references to women are gradually taken out.

“The health bill that doesn’t name women cannot address women’s health,” she said. “The Black maternal health bill that does not name Black women cannot address Black maternal health.”

Elizabeth Dawes, director of maternal and reproductive health at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, called the shift in language “demoralizing” and “disheartening” — a reinforcement for her that Congress is not working enough to address the concerns of Black women like herself. She worries it sets a bad precedent for grassroots advocacy.

“When we’re thinking about the future of how we advocate for change, and what that means and what that looks like, it would reshape that for us to be vague about our ask, for us to be general,” said Dawes, another cofounder of BMMA who is no longer affiliated with the group and now helps lead the Black Maternal Health Federal Policy Collective. “I think we’ve seen enough of how general conversations go. I think they go nowhere.”

That tension was on display during a congressional hearing on April 17 when Rep. Summer Lee, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, questioned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about reports that the department told organizations applying for federal dollars to remove nearly 200 words, including Black, from funding applications.

“How are we going to solve the Black maternal mortality crisis if we cannot say ‘Black’?” she asked Kennedy.

Lee told The 19th in an interview after that exchange that she had not noticed the title change on the Momnibus bill, which she supports as a co-sponsor.

“I’m not shocked,” she said. “We’ve seen a lot of people shifting not their priorities but how they word it preemptively in a lot of instances, because they’re afraid that if they are forward with their mission, that their organization, that their program is geared toward addressing a particular issue that they think falls within diversity, equity or inclusion, that they will no longer be able to receive the funding.”

Lee’s office later declined to further comment on Underwood’s explanation for the title change.

The office of Democratic Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina, one of the lead sponsors of the bill, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Suzy Vazquez, a spokesperson for Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, the bill’s main sponsor in the Senate, said: “When Senator Booker speaks about this issue and this legislation it is in the context of the maternal health care crisis facing the Black community. His purpose and priority is ending disparities in maternal health and advancing policies that improve outcomes for Black moms and their families by standing up in Congress to ensure no mother is left behind.”

Nedhari had a response to that statement: “This issue is not whether or not people genuinely care. It’s about the level of courage that you are willing to have in this moment — to name that this is for who it’s for.”

Underwood, who has a background in nursing, speaks often about the intersection of disparate maternal health outcomes and Black women. She participates in multiple events focused on Black maternal health, most recently during Black Maternal Health Week in mid-April. She told The 19th that she is continuing to consolidate support for the package and is having conversations “with colleagues on both sides of the aisle about the priorities.”

“There’s always opportunities to advance one or more bills through the committee process, and we’ve been pursuing those opportunities aggressively,” she said. She declined to specify which bills.

Amid the federal stalemate, Black women have taken action on the state level to address racial maternal health disparities — including state-level Momnibus bills, Medicaid postpartum coverage extensions, doula reimbursement and the establishment of maternal mortality review committees with community representation.

Dawes added that many of the efforts to address racial maternal health disparities are led by Black women and they’re not waiting around for Congress to act.

“We’re going to fight for Black moms no matter what. We’re going to get them the care they need no matter what. So if Congress isn’t going to do it, let’s see what can happen in the states. If the states aren’t going to do it, let’s see what happens at the city and county level,” she said. “But I believe Congress has the responsibility to do something, and that something needs to be wholehearted. It needs to be comprehensive, it needs to be thorough, and it needs to be bold enough to name Black women, to name the people who it’s trying to support.”

The post The Word ‘Black’ Has Disappeared From Bills Aimed at Addressing Black Maternal Health appeared first on Capital B News.

MONTGOMERY, Alabama – Roy Wilson remembers marching with his family before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.

More than 60 years later, the 77-year-old answered the nationwide call to action this weekend as hundreds mobilized across Selma and Montgomery against the direct attacks on the voting protections he fought for as a teenager.

“We’re in trouble. I grew up here in the ’60s, finished high school in ’66 and was so proud and happy for us when the voting rights bill passed, all those years ago,” he told Capital B.

Now, Wilson and other Black Southerners fear a return to a past where Black representation and political power are nonexistent.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling eroded a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The 6-3 ruling struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana. Within two weeks, several states rushed to redraw their own maps. Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia have used the ruling to call for special sessions or are considering debating redistricting, potentially erasing districts with Black representatives. 

In sweltering 85-degree weather Wilson joined others in front of Alabama’s state Capitol in Montgomery. Raised fists, signs, gospel music, and protest chants filled the air on the streets of the capital.

“We’re not going back!”  

“You can’t stop the revolution!” 

The mass gathering started with prayer and speeches on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders marched more than 50 miles to the state Capitol in Montgomery to register Black voters in the South. 

Like in 1965, this weekend’s first “All Roads Lead to the South” call to action was filled with prayer, voting registration, and fellowship in Montgomery. 

Black voters from across the South told Capital B they remember their parents being politically active in earlier demonstrations for voting access. Now, they’re continuing the fight, bringing their children and grandchildren to witness history in real-time.

“My mother marched with Martin Luther King [Jr.] when she was in college. Knowing that here we are, back at the crossroads again to make a difference. It’s important for us to pick up the baton and start all over again. We get started, we move forward and we get it ready for the kids that’s going to take care of it after we leave. 

“It’s important for Black women to actually be a part of the voter rights and to understand what’s going on. We are the foundation of the family, so therefore it’s important for us to actually be the leaders in regards to making a move, getting things right and making sure people are registered, and understand what’s going on. With me having all girls its very important because we are the leaders and we are the future. The future, they need to understand what we’re passing the baton to and what they need to do.” 

“We drove here because our ancestors fought for the right to vote and I want my grandkids to have the right to vote. I think our ancestors fought too hard for these rights for us to lose them. That’s why we’re here, that’s why we drove here [from Atlanta].  My first thought was that’s the beginning of them trying to take us back over 60 years. We are from Louisiana, you know, and I hated to see that, to hear [about the redistricting] in Louisiana. 

“It feels good, it feels like we’re continuing the fight. The fight is never going to end. We’ve got to keeping fighting to keep our rights.” 

“Now here we are trying to protect our rights against the Republicans. I just think it’s wrong and we’re just … we’re in trouble. This country is in trouble now that the Republicans are in power. 

“When [Gov. Kay Ivey] called that special session, she knew exactly how that would go. You can’t overlook what they’re doing to our voices. It’s just wrong. She knew exactly how that vote would go. 

“My mother was very involved, starting with the bus boycott. We marched as a family in the Selma-Montgomery march. When the march reached Montgomery we joined in and were right here for thst. Once we got the right to vote, I mean, even if we didn’t know the candidates, we had to do our research because not voting [wasn’t] an option. 

“If we don’t come, no one else is going to protect us. No one will protect our voting rights. It’s unfair that they are trying to weed out Black representation because who else is going to speak for us if we don’t speak for ourselves? I am appalled that the governor of the state of Alabama will call a special session and there will be an election, possibly in August, to try to weed out our representative, Shomari Figures. It doesn’t make any sense, so that’s why I’m here today 

“When I turned 18, my mother said you need to go and register to vote. I would catch the bus and transfer downtown to go to Alabama State University.  I turned 18 that August and in November when she asked where my voting registration card was and I said I didn’t have it, I forgot to vote. … Do you know she locked me out? She. Locked. Me. Out. The next day guess what I did? I registered to vote. Registering to vote is not the end. You have to go to the polls. On voting day, everyone in my household, we go to vote.” 

The post ‘We’re Not Going Back’: Black Voters March in Alabama Against Redistricting appeared first on Capital B News.

The flurry of direct attacks on voting rights in the South has thrust voters, candidates, and organizers into a state of chaos and confusion in the midst of an election season. 

It’s a result of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which weakened protections under the Voting Rights Act. It allowed several states, including Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina, a rushed opportunity to redraw their congressional maps. Republican legislators see it as a way to gerrymander the districts in their favor. 

But Black women say they aren’t letting it slide. 

Former Vice President Kamala Harris called the Supreme Court decision an “unapologetic” feat to play politics with people’s access to the ballot box. 

“Here’s how I think about it, what they are doing is they are back-dooring racism behind politics to get to this decision and to justify then what is happening in all the Southern states,” Harris said. “This is obviously a time for us to fight.”

Harris’ remarks were met by hundreds of comments, reactions, and emojis by more than 5,000 women who showed up on Zoom call this week organized by Win With Black Women. In 2024, the same network galvanized over 44,000 women nationwide who, within three hours, raised more than $1.5 million to support Harris’ run for the presidency.

Two years later, the coalition is still building on the momentum. 

Inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, the group is launching a grassroots campaign called “All Roads Lead to the South” in response to the rollback of voting rights. The mass mobilization movement will start on May 16, when thousands will descend on Alabama. The morning will begin with a prayer and walk across the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, then a mass rally at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.

This new era calls for a modern Freedom Summer, which makes Alabama the perfect place to gather, added DeJuana Thompson, organizer and founder of Woke Vote, an organization dedicated to voter outreach and turnout.

“It is about saying that, yes, we are coming back to some of the places where it started and where we thought we had put it to bed,” she said. “Since they picked it back up, we’re gonna pick it back up with the same traditions that we know work. So we’re coming back to the memory.”

It’s not only about honoring memory or affirming Black political power, but re-dedication to the movement, said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter.

“This is not about those who seek to oppress us. They represent the relics of the past,” Brown said. “We are the future. We’re going to create the America that we desire and we deserve.” 

For Black Southerners, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act isn’t an isolated incident but the culmination of a decades-old fight to protect Black political power, state lawmakers say. 

On the same evening, Emerge, a national organization dedicated to connect, recruit, and train Democratic women to run for office, hosted a virtual call focused on the redistricting crisis in the South, which also included a special appearance from Harris. 

Calling in from their offices and state legislatures, Democratic women lawmakers from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee, expressed their concerns around voter suppression and confusion. 

In Tennessee, where Republican Gov. Bill Lee called for a special election to redraw maps, Memphis, the state’s only majority-Black district, could be split into three new districts. 

State Rep. London Lamar says she believe the attempt to help Republicans gain one more seat through redistricting will backfire because Black Memphians are fired up and will use the energy to head to the polls in record turnout.

“What happened in Tennessee is a playbook for the rest of the nation,” Lamar said. “Some of our states stopped this this week, but unfortunately, Tennessee didn’t, so we’re going to do everything we can to fight back and make sure we turn out our people to vote to bring our districts back.”

The motivation to keep going stems from seeing younger generations engage in the fight, as well as support from peers, lawmakers say. For Alabama state Sen. Merika Coleman, it’s also about how the previous generations were able to persevere. She called back to “Bloody Sunday,” the site where 600 people were brutally beaten by police officers for marching to secure voting rights. It happened on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the same place where the mass mobilization effort will begin this week.

“I used to wonder, if I was alive during the movement, what would I have done? Would I have marched the streets of Birmingham? Would I have been one of those songbirds like my grandfather was? Would I have sat at a lunch counter? Would I have participated in a boycott?” Coleman reflected. 

She added: “None of us can wonder anymore because we’re in the moment right now. We’ve won before; we’re going to have to pull that playbook back out and use it again. We don’t have to wonder anymore. I don’t have to wonder. Our time is now.”

The post Black Women Are Turning the Supreme Court Ruling Into a Battle Cry appeared first on Capital B News.

ST. LOUIS — The tapping sound drew Jeffrey Bingham to his front window.

Outside, the world was folding in on itself. Trees bent sideways. Power lines snapped. Across the street, a two-story brick house crumbled and disappeared instantly.

Then his windows blew and the front door ripped open. He ran for the basement as pressure filled his ears and the air rushed in hard enough to feel like it might crack his skull.

There were no tornado sirens and no emergency alerts pinged his phone. When Bingham, 64, emerged, Cates Avenue looked, in his words, “like Beirut.” Cars buried in splintered wood, dust plumes lifted from homes reduced to piles, and electrical fires sparked along the street. 

Today, nearly a year later, his North St. Louis block doesn’t look that different.

The once‑storied heart of Black St. Louis is now a cluster of vacant lots, gutted homes, and buildings the city says are too dangerous to stand but cannot afford to tear down. What remains exposes not only the violence of a single storm, but a growing nationwide pattern of Black communities left unwarned when disaster strikes and alone to pick up the pieces afterward.

That May 16, 2025, tornado system was the most destructive tornado to carve through an American city in over a decade. It damaged more than 10,000 properties, killing and injuring residents along its path and leveling entire blocks holding generations of Black history. Outside the city, it barely registered as news.

“We saw what national attention could look like,” said Kayla Reed, executive director of Action St. Louis.

Just months earlier, in the foothills above Los Angeles, the Eaton Fire ravaged the historically Black and middle‑class enclave of Altadena, leaving roughly the same number of properties damaged. That fire dominated national headlines for much of 2025.

“[The Federal Emergency Management Agency] response [and] the national attention to St. Louis was unprecedentedly lackluster,” Reed said.

That lack of attention landed on top of President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for FEMA to be “weaned” off federal responsibility. He has cut funding for key resilience and mitigation programs. Billions in already‑approved disaster aid and hazard‑mitigation grants now languish in limbo.

It has translated into slower and stingier disaster declarations and explicit efforts to declare fewer disasters at all — changes that all but guarantee that poorer communities of color, without strong tax bases or political clout, will face rebuilding without federal help. 

Or as Reed put it: “be left to watch their neighborhoods and city die.” 

On blocks like Bingham’s, that retreat looks like families living in homes without electricity, with peeled back roofs and boarded up windows.

“A year later, people are still inside of the immediate recovery phase — living in hotels or homeless,” Reed said. “People are still navigating FEMA and arguing with their insurance.”

City and FEMA officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Bingham spent the year after the storm fighting through rain pouring into his roofless home, thieves stripping his abandoned house, a fire that destroyed his storage trailer and tools, and a maze of insurance claims and city inspections. 

“You look around and some homes look untouched, and some are gone,” he said. “It makes you search yourself and wonder what you could’ve done to deserve having to go through this. It also makes you realize who cares, and who doesn’t.”

Into that gap stepped neighborhood organizations that were never designed to run disaster response.

Reed’s Action St. Louis, an advocacy group born from the Ferguson uprising after the police killing of Michael Brown, has spent the past year stretching far beyond its original mission. Since the tornado, the organization has trained people in skills to weatherize homes without windows or walls, opened a community market when government aid dried up, canvassed neighborhoods when FEMA refused to, and fed people when no one else would. 

Across the neighborhood, at a weekly distribution site on Cates Avenue, another organization — 314Oasis — hands out food, clothing, rent assistance, and even acupuncture to hundreds of residents still living without heat and water.

“I see death. I feel death,” said the Rev. Bobbie Blunt, who volunteers at the 314Oasis distributions. “And for me, it’s heartbreaking, straight up.”

She looked around at a group of young children running across an empty lot turned community garden.

“We at least try to let them know that we love them. It may not be a whole lot, but it’s something to say we still love you. The storm has dissipated, but the wounds are still here.”

On a warm spring afternoon, Antigone Chambers drove slowly up Delmar Boulevard, narrating what used to be there. 

“Mainly people,” she said. 

As she drove, whole stretches of homes slid past with more tarps than roofs. A church sat with a hole in its wall the size of a truck, and a playground had cracked bricks thrown around where grass once was.

Chambers pointed out the meaning behind this ghost map: The nursing home where the roof caved in on her great-grandmother’s room, the hospital her great‑grandmother and grandmother could no longer easily reach, and the stretch of Forest Park where the trees that used to hide the art museum have been destroyed. 

“It’s disorienting,” the 23‑year‑old said. 

The city she remembered from childhood had already disappeared in less than a generation. The city her mother, Dail, knew had been gone even longer.

St. Louis was built into national prominence by Black workers who arrived in the early 20th century seeking industrial jobs and refuge from Southern racial terror. Quickly, it had a thriving Black middle class by midcentury, anchored in neighborhoods north of Delmar Boulevard. But decades of redlining, disinvestment, urban renewal, and suburbanization steadily hollowed out those communities. 

The city once boasted a population of 850,000. Now, fewer than 300,000 people live there. 

It has meant that some of the homes damaged by the tornado were emptied out long before the storm as whole blocks slipped so far in value that some houses struggle to fetch even a few thousand dollars at auction, with many essentially worth less than the price of a used car.

Now, Chambers can finally see the stereotypes people always used against the north side — vacant, broken, and unsafe. Only this time, the storm and the thin recovery made it that way. 

In the year since the tornado, her family’s life has been rearranged around those absences.

After Chambers’ great-grandmother was displaced, her health declined. She died after what her doctors described as a sudden cascade of stress and complications.

Chambers’ mother’s career was put on the back burner as she was left to manage damage and flooding in her own home, and round‑the‑clock caregiving for the elders in her life.

Chambers herself, who had built her own life in Florida, was pulled back to St. Louis, because she simply “had to,” she said. She traded her own goals for part-time serving shifts and three visits a week to care for her grandmother, who is sicker, more anxious, and, she admits, “a completely different person” than before the tornado. 

“I hate it,” she said, half‑joking, half not.

The federal government’s internal turmoil has deepened this reality. In the months after the tornado, the Trump administration moved to slash FEMA’s disaster workforce, cutting thousands of on-call responders and hollowing out the regional offices that usually anchor long-term recovery. Former officials and watchdogs say that meant fewer inspectors on the ground, slower casework, and stalled demolition projects in places like North St. Louis, especially as the stripped‑down staff were pulled away to new fires and floods.

City Hall tried to fill the vacuum, at least at first. In the tornado’s immediate aftermath, Mayor Cara Spencer opened disaster assistance centers with FEMA and pushed through hundreds of permits for repairs in the impact zone. The city worked with philanthropic partners to launch the Northside Resilience Fund, offering $3,000 in direct cash assistance to what it deemed the most severely damaged homes. By late summer 2025, more than 1,300 North St. Louis households had been approved, and millions in emergency aid had gone out.

But those efforts quickly revealed the limits of local government in the face of federal withdrawal. Application deadlines were extended again and again as residents struggled to pull together documents after the storm scattered their lives. A Private Property Assistance Program stalled in “review and prioritization” for months. As of this spring, fewer than 200 of the thousands of damaged properties had been stabilized, demolished, or repaired. Federal officials have agreed to demolish only a fraction of the dilapidated buildings, leaving blocks stuck in a decaying state.

On Mynique Stewart Sr.’s block, one house gleams with fresh siding while the one next door still wears plastic sheeting where the windows should be, its porch half‑collapsed and mailbox hanging open.

Stewart, 66, quickly received $770 after inspectors assessed tornado damage to his uninsured home, though the payout fell short of what he actually needed to fix his windows. Just blocks away, Joseph Smith, 72, has been stuck in a prolonged fight with both his insurer and FEMA, navigating appeals while his home remains damaged. He believes claims in the predominantly Black north side are scrutinized more harshly, a disparity reflected in research showing lower payouts and higher denial rates in Black communities. As he looks across his neighborhood, Smith doubts recovery efforts will restore a place he said was already neglected long before the storm.

Now, with a new Homeland Security secretary in place and both an active hurricane season and the 2026 men’s World Cup looming, the federal government is racing to rebuild what it tore down by rehiring disaster responders and renewing once-expired contracts. 

“Being reinstated doesn’t erase the fact that we were on administrative leave for eight months. Over eight months we couldn’t work, couldn’t help disaster survivors,” Abby Mcllraith, an emergency management specialist, told The Washington Post.

“Everyone who pays taxes in this country should be mad about this.”

When Reed, the co-founder and executive director of Action St. Louis, looks across the street from her office at a series of abandoned homes, she understands the gaping holes in her community did not happen as a result of the 26-minute-long tornado system. 

“The tornado was a climate disaster for sure,” Reed said, “but it was meeting a systemic one.” It swept across a foundation already weak from disinvestment and neglect — a century of deliberate choices to ensure that “when money was invested in the city, it would not go north.”

“The children of Ferguson are now leading the organizations responding to the recovery,” Reed said. They call it the People’s Response because they wanted everyday people to see themselves — not a charity model where all the recipients are “Black and all the volunteers are white retirees.”

“If you need two meals, you get two meals,” she said. “If you need two sizes of diapers, you get both. People are feeling witnessed.”

What happened in St. Louis will happen again. Tornado and hurricane seasons are here. Communities across the Midwest and South and along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are in the path.

The question isn’t whether the next disaster will come, residents said. It’s whether anyone will care when it does.

Blunt, watching neighbors line up for food, clothing, and care in April, said the support is proof that when the “government abandons” Black communities, those communities don’t disappear; they take care of their own.

A year after the storm, Bingham stands at his front window again. He just moved back in — 11 months and 29 days after he ran for the basement.

Through the glass, he can see where his neighbor’s house used to be.

His wife wasn’t in a hurry to come back. They were fortunate. She had settled into his sister’s place — home-cooked meals every day and soap operas in the afternoon. But Bingham bought her new furniture. That helped.

“Ain’t no place like home,” he said, even if you’re the only one left on the block. 

“If you live long enough, you’re going to experience something, some storm coming for you,” he said. “It can’t rain forever.”

But lately, it’s raining a lot harder.

The post Trump Weakened FEMA, and a Black St. Louis Neighborhood Is Paying the Price appeared first on Capital B News.

Marcus McDonald’s roots run deep on both his sides of his family in Charleston, South Carolina.

He’s a descendant of the Boone Hall Plantation, where his ancestors in his father’s family were once held captive. They come from a line of Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were enslaved on the sea islands of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

The site is now called Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens, a historical site popular among tourists and known for its role as a Hollywood backdrop, featured in the film The Notebook and the miniseries North and South. It’s also a place where they sell fresh produce, maintain gardens, and recently hosted Fright Nights during Halloween before its discontinuation this year. 

In 2024, Charleston set a record by generating $14 billion in tourism and about 7.9 million visitors. It’s created a culture of gentrification, erasure, and disrespect, as the boom is forcing descendants out. As the city continues to grow, Black people in the area are still struggling to get basic necessities to live, McDonald, the lead organizer for Charleston Black Lives Matter, said. 

“There’s different lands and people who are descendants from Boone Hall, specifically. They’re fighting to get water lines to their house – not a mile or 2 miles away from Boone Hall that makes millions of dollars a year,” McDonald told Capital B. “They would have nothing if it wasn’t for the people who are, again, fighting for sewage across the road. That’s unacceptable.”

With the recent rollback of voting rights, the erasure of Black history, and threats to democracy, McDonald is taking a proactive stance to urge the plantation owners to reckon with this reality and its history by offering reparations. 

A coalition of groups, including the Charleston Reparations Task Force and the Gullah Geechee community, issued a 40-day ultimatum to the owners of three former plantations to immediately transfer 7,000 acres of land back into the stewardship of the community. The sites are Boone Hall, Middleton Place, and Magnolia Plantation. At least 135 business, organizations, and community members are in support of the effort. McDonald referenced the recent resolution by the United Nations that addressed “the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity” as hope for mediation.  

“There’s nothing you could do to clean your hands off of this. They might have changed hands as far as the ownership, but y’all are still at the same location, and y’all are still using the name of when it was a plantation,” he added.

In the city of 159,000 people, only 13% are Black. About 14% of the total population live below the poverty line, and Black residents face higher poverty rates than any other groups in Charleston County, one report noted. There’s also a racial wealth gap where white families have the highest median household income at $102,000 compared to Black families who have the lowest median income of $46,000, according to Neilsberg Research.

Since the 1990s, Efia Nwangaza, founder of the Malcolm X Center for Self Determination, has been working on the reparations movement in South Carolina. The demand for reparations goes back to the 18th century when Belinda Sutton petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for her unpaid pension from the estate of her former owner, Isaac Royall. The government granted her request.

In recent memory, Evanston, Illinois, became the first city in the U.S. in 2019 to implement a program that distributed $25,000 housing grants to Black people. Others have passed resolutions or launched studies. 

The issue of reparative justice shouldn’t be political, but an affirmation of the dignity and humanity of African people’s personhood, Nwangaza said.

“We’re coming up on our 250-plus years of resistance, and we look forward to July 4, celebrating and reading Frederick Douglass’ speech to remind ourselves and to those who are the descendants who enslaved our ancestors, that there is a question to be answered and to be addressed — reparations being that response,” she said.

Capital B reached out to all three plantations. Magnolia Plantation did not respond. Middleton Place and Boone Hall said they are willing to work with the community.

Alana Long, communications manager for Middleton Place Foundation, said it is a nonprofit educational trust whose mission is to preserve a complete and honest interpretation of the history that centers the contributions and enduring legacies of the enslaved Africans and African Americans who lived and labored here.

“Middleton Place Foundation is committed to ongoing engagement and to ensuring that the full and complex history of this place is shared with honesty and respect,” she added.

Jim Westerhold, general manager for Boone Hall, which operates under a land conservatorship, said the institution is committed to ensuring the complex history of the land is shared with honesty and respect.

“We are aware of and respect the perspectives recently shared by members of the community, and we remain committed to engaging thoughtfully and responsibly, while continuing to advance our mission with care and integrity,” Westerhold wrote in a statement.

McDonald said he’s been in conversations with both Black and white descendants of the plantations who issued statements in support of the calls for reparations. His hope is that this action not only brings together people locally, but across the nation.

“If we really care about something to happen, we have to be willing to put in the sweat equity and the blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen,” he said. “There’s plantations all over the Southeast and even in the Caribbean. Make sure you mobilize and organize and educate your people around these issues.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Charleston set a tourism record in 2024.

The post Charleston’s Gullah Geechee Community Demand 7,000 Acres in Reparations appeared first on Capital B News.

In 1995, Alvin Brown’s grandparents became two of the 40,000 people who die in car crashes each year. They were going to a funeral service when their van crashed along Interstate 95 South near Manning, South Carolina. After their vehicle hydroplaned, a design flaw caused its doors to open, and they were ejected from the vehicle.

“I made a promise back then,” said Brown, who was the first Black mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, “that if I can ever do anything about safety, I will do it.”

In 2022, that promise eventually carried Brown to the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent federal agency tasked with investigating civil transportation accidents and offering safety recommendations. But Brown’s efforts have been thwarted. In May 2025, the Trump administration removed him from his post as the vice chairman of the board.

Brown’s firing didn’t occur in a vacuum. Robert Primus, who was the first Black chairman of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, an independent federal agency with oversight of railroads, also challenged his August 2025 dismissal. Brown and Primus were the only Black board members at their agencies when they were removed.

They filed lawsuits against the White House, arguing that they were fired in defiance of the “good cause” protections guaranteed by law for people in those kinds of positions and that such actions threaten the authority of and public trust in independent agencies. Brown and Primus also added discrimination claims, arguing that race played a role in their dismissals, which they say reflect a broader trend of the administration targeting Black officials. The administration has removed, or attempted to remove, four other Black members of multimember agencies, according to Brown’s complaint.

“There is a clear and troubling pattern here — across the independent agencies, Black commissioners and board members have been removed unlawfully at a disproportionately high rate,” Brown told Capital B. “It makes no sense to literally target Black leaders, which undermines the integrity, credibility, and effectiveness of these agencies.”

The White House has defended the firings, maintaining that President Donald Trump acted within his legal authority and that these decisions were based not on race but rather on performance.

“The only factor guiding the Trump administration’s personnel decisions is competence — lawful removals at the NTSB and STB are no different,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told Capital B in a statement.

Generally, the president can only remove a board member for incompetence, incapacity, or another “good cause.” Brown and Primus’ complaints say that no reason was given for their dismissals.

Recent research by Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that filed the racial discrimination claims on behalf of Brown and Primus, shows that the administration’s actions have significantly reshaped the racial composition of independent federal agencies.

Before the dismissals, the organization found, the boards of 13 multimember independent agencies were 74% white and 16% Black among a total of 50 members. After the removals, those same boards became 90% white and 7% Black, with 30 members remaining.

Additionally, Democracy Forward found that six of the eight Black commissioners on these boards, or 75%, had been fired, compared with 10 of the 37 white commissioners, or 27%.

Brown and Primus also have underscored the uneven treatment they’ve received within their respective agencies.

Federal law requires partisan balance, and limits how many board members can belong to the same party at one time. Brown and Primus are Democrats. Primus was nominated to the board by Trump in 2020, elevated to chairman by President Joe Biden in 2024, and later removed from the board in 2025, when Trump returned to office, though his term wasn’t supposed to expire until the end of 2027. A white Democratic member, Karen Hedlund, remained on the board.

Brown faced a similar dynamic. He was nominated to the board by Biden in 2022 and again in 2023, before Biden elevated him to vice chairman in 2024. Trump removed him from the board in 2025. One white Democratic member, Thomas B. Chapman, remained on the board after his term expired in 2023, which is standard practice until a replacement is found. Brown, however, was dismissed, though his term was scheduled to run through the end of 2026. A second white Democratic member, Jennifer Homendy, also remains on the board.

Trump selected John DeLeeuw, who’s white, to replace Brown.

Brown and Primus aren’t alone. The administration has ousted, or taken steps to oust, four other Black members of multimember agencies: Lisa Cook of the Federal Reserve, Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board, Charlotte Burrows of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Travis LeBlanc of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

These removals, both actual and attempted, come as the administration faces scrutiny over the impact that its overhaul of the federal government is having on Black Americans, who prior to 2025 were about 18% of the federal workforce and 14% of the total U.S. population.

For Brown, the lawsuit is about more than reclaiming his seat on the board. It’s also about what he believes is at stake if people remain silent.

“I take this lawsuit very seriously, not for me to be reinstated back in my job, but because the public deserves to know what is happening,” said Brown, who added that he’s standing on the shoulders of many people who came before him. “I’m not just fighting for myself. I’m also fighting for the next generation — so that they won’t have to deal with these issues.”

Read More:

• From Crockett to Willis: 8 Black Officials Who Have Clashed With Trump
• Lisa Cook Case Tests Presidential Power and Black Women’s Resolve

The post After Being Forced Out by Trump, Black Federal Officials Are Taking Him to Court appeared first on Capital B News.

ARLINGTON, Virginia — The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down the state’s April 21 redistricting ballot measure that voters had approved and that would have helped Democrats to pick up four additional seats and bolstered Black political power in Congress.

The 4-3 ruling comes just two days after the FBI raided the offices of Democratic state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a vocal proponent of the measure. It also follows an April 29 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that further eroded the Voting Rights Act of 1965, considered one of the greatest achievements of the Civil Rights Movement.

Virginia Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, writing for the majority, criticized the manner in which the legislature presented the constitutional amendment to voters, calling it “unprecedented.”

“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” he wrote.

Virginia’s mid-decade redistricting came in response to calls from President Donald Trump last year for Republicans in states including Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri to draw new maps that could pad their thin majority in the House.

Black political leaders in Virginia lamented the court’s ruling.

“Three million people voted in a free and fair election,” House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear. They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”

Counties with a Black population of at least 25% backed the measure by a 14-point margin, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Trump’s demands set off an escalating back-and-forth over redistricting, with Democrats and Republicans seeking to redraw maps in ways that could net them an electoral advantage. The stakes are sky high, especially for Black voters: District lines determine whether different communities have a meaningful chance to pick candidates who reflect local priorities.

Because Black voters overwhelmingly back Democratic candidates — more than 80%, according to the Pew Research Center — redrawing district boundaries can have a major impact on their ability to influence elections. This means that redistricting isn’t just a partisan fight; it’s also a battle over representation and power.

“We don’t want voices silenced in other places,” Marsha Mitchell, the senior director of Community Coalition, a racial solidarity group, told Capital B last year, after Californians approved a measure to allow the state to redraw its House map. “It’s about balance, and it’s about defending democracy. Black folks are the ones who have made the promise of democracy real for America.”

“Fight Back, Vote YES.” “Vote NO, Don’t Divide Arlington.”

The run-up to the vote in Virginia was dominated by intense campaigning, with signs lining streets and ads flooding airwaves. Some of this campaigning targeted Black voters. One mailer, in particular, attracted much attention. It was paid for by a political action committee chaired by former state Del. A.C. Cordoza, a Black Republican from Hampton.

The mailer leaned heavily on imagery from the Civil Rights Movement, with a black-and-white photograph of marchers filling the page. “Our ancestors fought to represent us,” the headline read, warning that politicians were attempting to “take our districts away.” The message encouraged voters to reject the state’s redistricting measure.

In Virginia, invoking the Civil Rights Movement carries particular historical weight. It’s the state that birthed Massive Resistance, the campaign by white leaders to block school integration after 1954’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision. Observing this history being repurposed angered many Black Virginians.

“These mailers have caused quite an uproar in the African American community in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” the Rev. Cozy Bailey, the president of the NAACP Virginia State Conference, told NBC4 Washington in March. “They’ve used this hyperbolic messaging, and it has actually backfired on them because now people are becoming even more aware of what this issue is about and making intelligent decisions.”

To many of Virginia’s Black political leaders, the mailer underscored concerns about how historical narratives are used in present-day political messaging. Jay Jones, the state’s first Black attorney general, condemned the mailer and its use of history.

“I take very seriously the history that is being invoked in these mailers,” Jones, a Democrat, said, adding that they “misuse imagery from the Civil Rights Movement and even invoke Jim Crow while falsely suggesting the measure threatens Black representation.”

He also rooted his criticism in family memory: “My parents and grandparents lived through the reality of Jim Crow in Virginia,” Jones said. “They experienced firsthand what it meant when the law and the political system were used to silence Black voices. That history is not a political prop, and it should never be exploited in a misleading attempt to confuse voters.”

Cordoza defended the mailer. At a recent press conference, he pushed back against accusations that it was misleading or racially inflammatory.

“I know there’s some controversy behind [the mailer],” he said. “The people who have controversy with this mailer are the same people talking about fairness while constructing a map that disenfranchises Black voters in favor of Northern Virginia legislators. It’s a shameful act.”

The loss in Virginia is a major blow to Democrats after they already lost redistricting battles in other parts of the country.

Redistricting efforts have forced U.S. Rep. Al Green of Texas out of his former district and have made a North Carolina district that has for decades enjoyed Black Democratic representation friendlier to Republicans.

Missouri Republicans also have targeted Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching it into Republican-heavy rural areas.

Though most Virginians supported the redistricting measure, it was always expected that the outcome might not be final because the state Supreme Court could weigh in.

Still, civil rights activists painted the public vote as a triumph over a divisive campaign.

“[Politicians] targeted Black voters with manipulative mailers and weaponized fear in an attempt to tilt the outcome. It failed,” Nadine Smith, the president and CEO of the nonprofit advocacy organization Color of Change, said. “Voters saw through it, stood together, and sent a clear message: If you try to rig our democracy, we will organize, we will vote, and we will win.”

This story has been updated.

The post Virginia Supreme Court Strikes Down Vote That Was About Representation and Power appeared first on Capital B News.

This story was originally published by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.

Memphis voters braved the rain Tuesday morning to vote in the county primary election. As they headed to the polls, lawmakers returned to the state Capitol for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional districts. State Republicans are expected to eliminate the only Democratic-held seat: Memphis’ District 9. 

The special session follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a provision of the Voting Rights Act last week. The law had required Tennessee to have at least one congressional district whose population was mostly Black residents.

Now, legislators intend to split up Memphis, so all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are majority white. President Donald Trump has urged Tennessee Republicans to flip the state’s last Democratic seat red in order to give the party more seats in Congress before the November midterm elections. 

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism reporters headed to voting sites to speak with Memphians about what it will mean to lose their seat in Congress and how redistricting will impact their rights.

Bennita Wade, voting at Raleigh United Methodist Church

“I was here in the ’60s when [the Voting Rights Act] was passed,” Wade said. “It’s just disturbing. To me, I don’t understand why — I do understand why, though. Why is it that we have to be punished here with no district to vote [in], and we never get a representative of our choice anymore? That’s something that we have that was fought for so hard and so long. So it’s disturbing.

“I don’t know what can be done, but hopefully the people that I voted for will have a voice, and when we vote in August, maybe we can put somebody in who might have a voice, but they’ve stripped all of that away just overnight. We are moving backward, rapidly moving backwards. And with the United States being such a democracy-driven superpower, what does it say to the world when you disenfranchise so many people?”

Fred Dorse, 81, voting at First Baptist Broad

“I was here when we first fought with the Department of Justice to get this district drawn so that the African American minority could win it,” Dorse said. “It hurts my heart, at almost 81 years old, to see us lose this again. The same fight we had then, back in the late ’60s and ’70s, now we’re fighting it in 2026, and we have to preserve it.

“The 9th Congressional District in Tennessee is the largest African American district in the United States. We have had white representation in the form of Congressman Steve Cohen for 20 years … but the thing is, it’s still ours, and we don’t want to lose that right to have it. Let us keep our choice, whether it be white or African American. We still want to have that choice for us. Now, what they’re talking about doing would dilute that choice. Not only would we lose it as a Democratic district, we would lose it as a minority population.”

Gloria Jonez, voting at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church

“That would mean we have no say-so. Oh no, we need to fight on that one. No, we need say-so just like everyone, every city needs a representative. A lot of people may not even know that it’s happening,” said Jonez, who said she hadn’t heard about the redistricting before MLK50 spoke to her. 

“You’re talking about snatching power, of our say-so and freedom of speech. We need that, it’s essential. We need that more than anything.

“It’s unfair. We need to battle on that one; they can take that to the court. We [should] probably have some lawyers in court. Without a congressional seat, you don’t have a person to go through … a representative lets you know what’s happening up there [in the government].”

Alma Ingram, 86, voting at Pursuit of God Church Memphis

“Steve Cohen, I always vote for him,” Ingram said. “He’s a good man. He always helps, especially old people. I’m 86 years old, so I’m way up there. I don’t think [redistricting is] right, but that’s the way they’ve been doing, getting rid of good people and bringing other people in. … I hope he has the chance to stay. I’m an old-timer, we need someone that’s gonna stay in and help the elderly people. It’s just a bad situation right now.” 

Francine Wilson, 70s, voting at Glenview Community Center

“I don’t like it, because I came from the old school, and I feel like they are trying to wipe the Blacks out. I’m going to actually say it like that,” Wilson said. “It’s taking us back, way back to the Jim Crow days. I don’t like that. My children have to come up behind me, and my grandchildren, and I pray that everything goes well for them, that they don’t have to fight as we always have.

“Everyone goes back to The Color Purple: ‘I had to fight all the days of my life.’ So if we’ve had to fight all of our days, why should we have to just constantly fight? What’s wrong with getting along? There’s one blood, and it’s all running red, and that came from Jesus.”

Joyce Jordan, 69, voting at Grace Missionary Baptist Church

“It’s taking us back where leaders fought, where we as people fought,” Jordan said. “People died for these rights, and now it’s being taken away, taking us back to the ’60s and beyond. I feel as though that is very evil, and it’s wrong.

“When I’m voting, I want what I’m voting for to be registered and beneficial for me and other constituents other than it being a benefit for the political hierarchy. It’s not benefiting me or other people at all, and they say, ‘America First.’ I don’t see it.” 

Natalie Wallington is the housing reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at natalie.wallington@mlk50.com.

Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com

The post ‘It Hurts My Heart’: Black Elders Reflect on Tennessee Plan To Strip Memphis of Power appeared first on Capital B News.

This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

Breaking news: Republican lawmakers in Tennessee approved a new U.S. House map Thursday that carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.

A Tennessee congressional map redrawn by Republicans with direction from the White House cuts Shelby County into three districts designed to give the GOP complete control over the state and consolidate power in Williamson County.

Notably, Memphis would be drawn into the same districts as affluent Williamson in Middle Tennessee, home of Gov. Bill Lee, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a gubernatorial candidate.

To reach their goal, Republican lawmakers voted in a committee to change state law that prohibits redistricting in the middle of an apportionment cycle, even though they don’t have updated population figures. The state hasn’t made such a move since the law was adopted in 1972.

“We’re getting screwed,” said Memphis resident Martin Johnson, an organizer for the Equity Alliance in West Tennessee. “It’s trying to split up and dilute the Black vote.”

Johnson raised questions about how a member of Congress from rural West Tennessee or suburban Middle Tennessee would be able to listen to Memphis residents or how voters would be able to hold their representative accountable.

Johnson and Patricia Lurry were among numerous Memphians who traveled to Nashville to oppose the redistricting effort.

“They’re talking about tearing our city apart. Ultimately, that’s what they’re doing for their own selfish gain,” Lurry said. 

Lurry listened to testimony from election and political experts who presented evidence showing the redistricting would harm the election process and cause voter “confusion” and “chaos.” 

“What are we here for, just for show?” Lurry said, pointing out that testimony showed Memphis is an “organic” Black voting block that could change as growth takes place.

Democratic state Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville blasted the proposed map, noting the two Memphis districts would run two different 200-mile routes, ending in Williamson, while a third Memphis district has an “obvious racial architecture.”

“Give me a break. It’s the most blatant dilution of Black voting power since the height of Jim Crow,” Yarbro said.

Under a bill filed Wednesday in a special session of the Tennessee legislature, a new 5th U.S. Congressional District would stretch from urban Memphis up the western part of the state to Kentucky before running easterly to Maury and western Williamson counties. 

The new 9th U.S. Congressional District, which currently includes Memphis and part of Tipton County, would run across southern Shelby County along the state’s southern border, taking in the eastern part of Maury and Williamson counties, as well as tiny Moore County.

A new 8th U.S. Congressional District would take in the northeastern portion of Shelby County, including Memphis suburbs, and run across rural West Tennessee counties such as Haywood and Madison, ending in Perry County in Middle Tennessee.

Majority Leader Johnson, who is sponsoring the Senate version of the redistricting bill, said Wednesday morning the two chambers agree on the redrawn map.

“They’re talking about tearing our city apart. Ultimately, that’s what they’re doing for their own selfish gain,” said Patricia Lurry, who traveled from Memphis to Nashville to oppose the redistricting.

Johnson, a Franklin Republican seeking the Senate speaker’s post, said the legislature designed the map, not the White House.

President Donald Trump pressured Gov. Bill Lee to call the special session to redraw the map in an effort to give Republicans a 9-0 advantage in Tennessee’s congressional districts and another vote to keep Trump’s policies going.

“We allowed (the Trump administration) to opine and give some guidance on it, but we drew the map,” Johnson said.

The White House provided input on population figures for each proposed district to make sure the map is legal, Johnson said. The plan is designed to put as many Republicans in Congress as possible to represent Tennessee’s “conservative values,” Johnson added.

Davidson County would remain split into three counties, a move the legislature made in 2021 to end Democratic control of the Nashville district. But it would take in a portion of the 4th, 6th and 7th U.S. Congressional Districts, and the 5th District would be removed.

New lines for the 6th U.S. Congressional District take in a portion of Davidson and reach into small portions of Sumner County, a move that allows state Rep. Johnny Garrett to remain in the 6th and continue his congressional campaign.

Read More:

• ‘A Fight Ahead’: Black Voters Face Fallout From U.S. Supreme Court Decision
• Supreme Court Ruling Threatens Black Voting Power Beyond Louisiana
• Why Voting Is Becoming Harder for Black Americans in Southern States

The post Black Memphians Came to Fight a Voter Map That They Say Erases Them appeared first on Capital B News.

A month after shots were fired at their rural Colorado ranch, Courtney “CW” and Nicole Mallery can finally celebrate some good news with a legislative win.

When the couple reported their cattle stolen from their Freedom Acres Ranch, they say they didn’t receive any help from their local law enforcement officials.

They went directly to their state lawmakers to push for a bill that would allow the Colorado Department of Agriculture to receive reports of lost or stolen livestock, ensure it is publicly posted, and coordinate efforts with local law enforcement.

“We’ve had our cattle stolen, over and over again. That’s not just loss, that’s your livelihood being taken from you. That’s not just property, that’s our livelihood. It’s how we survive, how we keep  going,” the Mallerys told Capital B. “The truth is, we can’t keep going like that. If this continues, we would have to shut our doors and there would be no more Freedom Acres Ranch.”

Now, the bill, which has bipartisan support, is set to become law after the Colorado House and Senate unanimously voted yes. On May 5, House Speaker Julie McCluskie signed the bill. The legislation is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Jared Polis. 

In Colorado, the agriculture industry generates about $47 billion annually, according to a 2024 brief from the state’s Legislative Council Staff. In a state where the top agricultural commodity is cattle and calves, there is a need for policy to protect livestock, the Mallerys added. Their efforts to seek solutions will now help farmers across the state.

“This bill removes any bias, makes some accountability, creates some real systems and creates real deterrence against cattle theft and helps protect our livelihoods,” the ranchers wrote in a statement. “When cattle are stolen, it doesn’t just impact one ranch, it affects the entire system and the cost of food for everyday people.”

State Sen. James Coleman, co-sponsor of the bill and as president of the Senate, expressed his gratitude to the Mallerys.

“Many thanks to Freedom Acres Ranch and other community members who came out to testify in support of the bill during the hearing. Let’s do this!” Coleman wrote on social media after the bill passed out of the senate agriculture committee.

This victory has been no small feat.

In the midst of fighting at the Capitol, the Mallerys told Capital B previously that they faced being doxxed and surveilled, as well as vandalism, and discovered their animals dead on their property. Guns were pointed at them. They were even charged with felony stalking, petty theft, and tampering with a meter, but the charges were later dropped by prosecutors. 

And for once, they finally feel heard.

“We want people to understand that even in the middle of a storm, when it feels like we are fighting against everything, against systems, against violence, against injustice, against people trying to push us off our land, we are still standing,” the Mallerys said. “We are still making positive change. We are still choosing love. We are still choosing light.”

Read More:

The post Black Ranchers Got No Help After Their Cattle Were Stolen, So They Fought to Change the Law appeared first on Capital B News.

Black celebrities delivered showstopping looks at the 2026 Met Gala, drawing on artistic inspiration at one of the industry’s biggest nights.

The theme of the exhibition, “Costume Art,” focuses on the relationship between clothing and the human form. The dress code, “Fashion is Art,” encouraged attendees to celebrate the “dressed body” in all its forms. 

This year’s Met Gala follows 2025’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibit, which paid tribute to the history and influence of the Black dandy. Like last year, attendees built on the theme in their own unique ways.

Beyoncé wore a glittering Olivier Rousteing gown with intricate details that formed the shape of a skeleton. She paired the look with a matching crown, detailed gloves, and a dramatic, feathered coat with a train that flowed down the carpet. For her, the look was about “celebrating whatever God gave you,” she told Met Gala interviewer LaLa Anthony.

Met Gala co-chair Venus Williams wore a Swarovski look inspired by her National Portrait Gallery portrait by artist Robert Pruitt. The dazzling design featured symbols of her West African heritage, references to the Watts Towers of Southern California, and a nod to the Wimbledon women’s singles trophy.

“There’s symbolism in every part of this, from my culture to where I’m from,” Williams said. “It just felt right for this moment.”

Angela Bassett wore a Prabal Gurung look inspired by a 1927 Harlem Renaissance painting by Laura Wheeler Waring. “This was inspired by a young girl in a pink dress, but I wanted to bring it into a more mature feeling,” Bassett said in her interview with Vogue.

SZA wore an ethereal look composed of more than 100 yards of vintage fabric sourced from eBay and designed in collaboration with designer Emily Adams Bode Aujla. Adorned with real crystals, citrine, rose quartz, and natural flowers, the ensemble was inspired by the Wiener Werkstätte, a 20th-century design collective.

“I wanted this to feel like my ethereal body, something that represents divine feminine energy and joy,” the singer said.

Skepta sported a custom white Thom Browne outfit featuring personalized details like London’s Tower Bridge and the Union Jack. The suit featured a quote from his song “Back 2 Back” with Fred Again: “You see two decks and a mixer but I see the bigger picture.”

Doechii wore a custom burgundy Marc Jacobs look that blended sculptural design with references to hip-hop and Black music history. The draped ensemble was paired with a towering headpiece and nail details that mimicked unpolished gems.

“I wanted to go with something that just felt very human and vulnerable and grounding,” Doechii told interviewers.

Law Roach arrived in a custom Ami suit featuring the work of Gabonese artist Naïla Opiangah. The look incorporated visual elements that reflect Opiangah’s exploration of the female form.

“I’ve loved her work for years, and getting to wear it like this felt like celebrating something bigger than fashion,” Roach said.

Janelle Monáe wore a custom Christian Siriano gown that explored the intersection of nature and technology. The look was built with live moss, succulents, a motherboard, ethernet cables, 230 electrical wires, 5,000 black crystals, and featured animatronic butterflies.

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The post Black Celebs Who Slayed the 2026 Met Gala appeared first on Capital B News.

Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court decidedto erode a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, several Southern states have pushed to redraw their congressional maps — a move that could weaken Black voting power and political representation.

The high court on April 29 issued a 6-3 decision striking down a map that had created a majority-Black district in Louisiana. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito called the map “unconstitutional.” The next day, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced the suspension of the May 16 primary so that state lawmakers could redraw lines. (Civil rights groups have filed lawsuits against Louisiana over the stopping of an active election.)

But the effects of the court’s decision have extended beyond Louisiana to other parts of the South, where most Black Americans reside. In the days since, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida also have rushed to create new maps. Such a shift, advocates caution, could change the balance of power and the complexion of leadership in this country.

“The court has essentially put the death knell into our nation’s most singularly important federal civil rights law,” Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, told Capital B, adding that the decision has emboldened lawmakers in former slaveholding states to dismantle majority-Black districts. “They will do so with the blessing of this court.”

In a statement, Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat and the representative of the voided Louisiana district, also made plain the sweeping ramifications of the decision, saying that the “practical effect” is that it will become far more difficult for Black voters to challenge racially discriminatory maps.

“This is especially troubling given the persistent reality that minority candidates are rarely, if ever, elected from districts where they are not the majority, underscoring why fair districting remains essential to ensuring equal representation,” he said.

Alabama: Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, has called a special legislative session to begin on May 4 to bring back Alabama’s previous map, which didn’t include the seat for the majority-Black district currently held by U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures.

Tennessee: Similarly, Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, has called for a special legislative session to begin on May 5 to review the state’s map. Redrawn lines would have a large impact on Memphis, which is included in Tennessee’s only majority-Black district.

South Carolina: Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, also has said that it would be “appropriate” for the General Assembly to review whether South Carolina’s map complies with the law, given the Supreme Court’s decision. Any changes to the map could affect the heavily Black district whose seat U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn has held since 1993.

Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, was moving to redraw the state’s map before the Supreme Court’s decision, but he viewed the development as further justification for signing a new map into law. 

Alito wrote that it was necessary to revisit Section 2, a provision created to combat racially discriminatory map-drawing. He cited gains in ending racial discrimination, the ease with which plaintiffs can “exploit” Section 2 by “dressing their political-gerrymandering claims in racial garb,” and the ability to use technology to draw lines that balance partisanship and race.

Now, he wrote, plaintiffs must demonstrate, using only “current” conditions, that minority groups faced intentional discrimination in the redistricting process.

“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Alito wrote. “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s [Section] 2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

This decision breaks with decades of precedent holding that Congress designed Section 2 to address not only intentional discrimination but also maps that lead to discrimination, regardless of whether intent could be proved.

Joining the majority opinion, which has significantly raised the bar for Voting Rights Act plaintiffs, were Alito’s fellow conservative justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts. He wrote the majority opinion in the landmark 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, which gutted a separate Voting Rights Act provision and led to an increase in the racial turnout gap, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice. Roberts has been critical of the Voting Rights Act since he was a young attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice.

Justice Elena Kagan delivered a muscular rebuke of Alito’s opinion. In her dissent, which was joined by her fellow liberal justices, she denounced the court’s decision as the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition” of the Voting Rights Act and the law’s deeper goal of expanding democracy.

“It is the rare legislature, as the history of voting discrimination shows, that cannot camouflage racial targeting with race-neutral justifications,” she wrote, criticizing Alito’s new requirement that plaintiffs prove racially discriminatory intent.

Kagan also warned that representation of Black communities in elected office could drop — and precipitously so.

“The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave,” she wrote. “[This] decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter. In the States where that law [the Voting Rights Act] continues to matter — the States still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting — minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process.”

Kagan was pointing to familiar — and controversial — redistricting tactics: “cracking” Black voters across multiple districts to minimize their influence, and “packing” them into as few districts as possible to contain that influence.

While finding a definitive number is difficult, groups have offered estimates of which districts might be affected by the kind of decision that was delivered April 29.

In an October report, Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter said that 33 House districts could be targeted in midcycle redistricting, and that 27 of them could become safe for Republican candidates. Of those districts, 19 would result from overturning Section 2.

“It’s enough to cement one-party control of the U.S. House for at least a generation,” according to the report.

But Janai Nelson, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, cautioned following the decision against focusing only on Congress.

“State legislatures, city councils, school boards, water boards, any entity that requires redistricting will be impacted by the decision,” she said. “We don’t have the numbers across the board for every district in this country — because there are so many that have benefited from the protections of Section 2 — but we do know that it will have a direct and potentially immediate impact on some of the upcoming elections, and certainly on elections going forward.”

Some advocates are attempting to create state-level alternatives to what they consider the now-defanged federal Voting Rights Act.

“At the LDF, we’re pushing for state Voting Rights Acts across the country,” Nelson said. “We’ll use that tool where possible and be as aggressive as we can in trying to get them passed in even the most unlikely states, like Louisiana, Mississippi, and other states known for their rampant racial discrimination.”

Nine states have their own Voting Rights Acts: Colorado (2025), Minnesota (2024), Connecticut (2023), New York (2022), Virginia (2021), Oregon (2019), Washington (2018), Illinois (2011), and California (2002). Louisiana state Sen. Royce Duplessis recently introduced similar legislation for the Bayou State, but it never made it out of committee.

Ambrose Sims, who lives in Louisiana’s West Feliciana Parish and has also challenged the state in court over its maps, shared Nelson’s enthusiasm for pushing back. He described the court’s April 29 decision as at once disappointing and reinvigorating.

“This ruling should really be a call to order,” said Sims, who grew up during the era of segregation and underscored that he doesn’t want to return to that time. “We’ve got to be vigilant. We have to look at what’s happening at the local level, in the state legislature, and in Congress. We have to let our voices be heard at the voting booth. We just need to fight — and not give up.”

Read More:

• The Voting Rights Act Turns 60. Its Future Has Never Looked More Fragile.
• Why Voting Is Becoming Harder for Black Americans in Southern States

This story has been updated.

The post ‘A Fight Ahead’: Black Voters Face Fallout From U.S. Supreme Court Decision appeared first on Capital B News.

Calvin Duncan was supposed to start on May 4 overseeing the criminal court in New Orleans after a federal judge blocked the state from eliminating the position. But less than an hour later, a higher court intervened, halting that decision at the state’s request.

Five months after Duncan secured 68% of the vote to become the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court clerk, Louisiana Republicans wanted to abolish the office before he could be sworn in.

For weeks there has been a tug of war about who gets to control what happens in New Orleans.

On April 30, Louisiana’s governor signed a law to have the Orleans Parish clerk of civil court take over the responsibilities of the clerk of criminal court. On May 3, a federal judge in Baton Rouge ruled that the legislation eliminating the position was unconstitutional and issued a temporary restraining order as litigation continued. 

Duncan reported to work on May 4, but later that day the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit blocked the lower court ruling. The appelate court’s decision pauses Duncan taking office until the Louisiana Supreme Court can weigh in on the case.

This clash over a Louisiana election stretches beyond just one man’s job, as battles over who gets a voice in U.S. democracy — whose vote meaningfully counts, who gets to exercise power after triumphing in a race — test the durability of Black political power across the South.

Duncan was jailed in 1982, at the age of 19, in a New Orleans murder-robbery case that was built partly on shaky eyewitness testimony. He was sentenced to life behind bars, and during this time, he began studying the law and earned a reputation as a skilled jailhouse lawyer, helping other incarcerated people to overturn their convictions.

Nearly three decades later, right before a hearing to consider more evidence in the case, prosecutors offered Duncan a deal: plead guilty to lesser charges and have his sentence reduced to time served. He did, and in 2011, after serving more than 28 years in prison, he was freed. In 2021, a judge tossed out his conviction, ruling it unconstitutional. He was exonerated.

“That was the second best day of my life,” Duncan told NPR in 2025. “The first best day of my life was when I got out January the 7th, 2011. The second best day of life was August the 3rd, 2021.”

But now, as Duncan is supposed to start his new role, lawmakers in the largely white and Republican Louisiana State Legislature want to eliminate his office through Senate Bill 256. 

The bill was written by state Sen. John “Jay” Morris and signed by Gov. Jeff Landry, both Republicans. It combines two offices: that of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court clerk, and that of the Orleans Parish Civil District Court clerk.

Proponents of the bill maintain that they’re not motivated by race or politics. Landry, who didn’t respond to Capital B’s request for comment, told the AP that abolishing Duncan’s office would boost “government efficiency” and help with “cleaning up a system in Orleans Parish that has been plagued by dysfunction and corruption for years.” And Morris told Verite News that the “surviving clerk” — Civil District Court Clerk Chelsey Richard Napoleon — “is African American herself, and she’s a woman.”

Still, to opponents, those justifications ring hollow, and what they see playing out is a betrayal of Duncan’s journey — and of the will of the voters.

“He inspired people to believe again — that their vote matters, that redemption is real, and that good people, even those who have been knocked down by the system, can stand back up and be chosen by their community,” Louisiana state Rep. Alonzo Knox, a Democrat, told Capital B. “SB 256 threatens to undo all of that. It sends a dangerous signal that even when the people speak — loudly and overwhelmingly — their decision can be set aside.”

Others see history repeating itself.

Ahead of the bill’s passage in the Senate, state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat, recounted the story of John Willis Menard. He seemed to have won a special election in 1868 and was slated to serve in the U.S. House and represent a district that included New Orleans, but he was prevented from doing so because of challenges to the election outcome.

“I have never seen something so barbaric,” Duplessis told his colleagues from the lectern, arguing that the bill won’t improve efficiency. “Just know that when we’re all done here and we go on with our lives, history has a record, and just like I read the record from 1868, this history, this will be recorded. A century from now, two centuries from now, what side are you on?

Duncan hasn’t responded to Capital B’s request for an interview. But in an earlier press release, he framed the state’s actions as an attempt to neutralize votes.

“Governor Landry and his lackeys want to overrule the voters and dictate what happens to us,” Duncan said. “It’s a slap in the face not only to the people who elected me, but to every voter across Louisiana.”

The push to dismantle Duncan’s office isn’t developing in isolation. It comes as Black political power across the South faces fresh opposition.

The U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 issued a decision striking down a Louisiana congressional district that added a second majority-Black district, with Justice Samuel Alito calling the map “unconstitutional.”

“There’s been this ‘two steps forward, one step back’ feeling — the pendulum swinging forward and then rapidly backward,” Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, which has represented Black voters during the saga, told Capital B last January. “People all across the state were excited about the voting rights victory we had and about having the additional seat filled by someone the community trusts and respects.”

Louisiana is hardly alone. The fight over the Bayou State’s map is taking place amid a wider redistricting battle. Maryland Democrats’ move to add an additional House seat failed in April due to disagreements within the party. And on April 21 — following a campaign that involved divisive mailers that likened redistricting to Jim Crow schemes — Virginians approved a measure that could help Democrats to gain additional House seats.

The vote came months after North Carolina Republicans approved a congressional map that increases their competitiveness in a district that’s enjoyed Black Democratic representation since the 1990s. It also arrived months after the Supreme Court gave Texas Republicans the green light to use a congressional map that had been challenged as racially discriminatory.

Additionally, Duncan’s experiences mirror more local battles, including the one faced by Patrick Braxton. He was initially blocked from serving as the first Black mayor of Newbern, Alabama, but later was allowed to take office. He resigned in 2025 after his opponent, who’s white, protested Braxton’s residency and the election.

“Failing to have access to a democratically elected position is violence. It’s indirect relative to some acts of racial terror, but it sends a similar message,” Christine Slaughter, a political scientist at Boston University, told Capital B in 2023, as Braxton’s plight was starting to gain national attention. “The types of suppression have changed, but it still has the intended effect of intimidating voters and officeholders.”

Duncan has made clear that he refuses to buckle to intimidation: “I won’t quit until I’ve done the job the people elected me to do,” he said in the press release.

After spending nearly 30 years in prison advocating for his freedom and more than a decade rebuilding his life, he won the chance to serve his community. Now, he’s being confronted with a new test — this one over whether his victory will endure.

Still, despite it all, Knox said, if you listen to Duncan, “you will not hear anger. You will not hear resentment. You hear grace. You hear commitment. You hear someone who believes deeply in this system — even after it failed him.”

This story has been updated.

The post Louisiana Exoneree Wins Election, Then Gets Blocked From Taking Office on First Day appeared first on Capital B News.

NEW ORLEANS — As the Louisiana state Senate debated what the National Homelessness Law Center says is “one of the cruelest anti-homeless bills in the country,” more than 50 mainly Black unhoused people sat and lay on the sidewalk in New Orleans’ Central City neighborhood. 

The bill, which already passed overwhelmingly through the state’s Republican-dominated House of Representatives, could subject unhoused people to fines, jail time, or even unpaid labor if they are found sleeping outdoors. 

“We’re struggling already and this isn’t a choice,” said Christopher Brumfield, 51. “This isn’t because we’re doing drugs. It is expensive to live, so you’re saying you want to penalize us for struggling?”

Brumfield has been unhoused “on and off” since 2020. He owns a trailer in a small rural town in Louisiana’s Livingston Parish, but he is unable to afford utilities, water, and a new septic tank — which costs upward of $20,000. He came to New Orleans to try to find a job five years ago.

“I’m working, but I can’t afford to stay in the house. I’ll die there,” he said, as he lay on the sidewalk on an 88‑degree spring day.

Louisiana’s efforts come on the heels of a 2024 Supreme Court decision that allows states and cities to criminalize homelessness. The bill, which is expected to be voted on by the state’s Republican-controlled Senate, would make homelessness and sleeping on the streets punishable by a fine of up to $500, imprisonment for up to six months, or both. Repeat offenders could face one to two years in prison with hard labor and a $1,000 fine.

Louisiana has the nation’s highest share of people living in poverty, according to the most recent data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. And already, the state has the highest rate of incarceration not just in the U.S., but across the entire Western world. 

About 60% of Louisiana’s unhoused population is Black despite the state being 30% Black. 

State officials who have come out in support of the bill said it could help the impoverished state get in better graces with the Trump administration. Last summer, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that directs the federal government to attempt to favor states that enforce prohibitions on public camping and loitering when giving grants.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision, around two dozen states and hundreds of municipalities have passed various measures criminalizing poverty. The two states with the most municipalities passing such laws are California and Illinois, two Democrat strongholds.

Nationwide, Black people are most likely to be unhoused and nearly four times more likely than their white counterparts. 

A representative for Gov. Jeff Landry said Louisiana’s bill would help save the country money and could help connect unhoused people with more resources by expanding “homelessness courts,” which would allow some unhoused people to pursue a treatment program. Someone who successfully completes the program could have their conviction tossed. However, people enrolled in those programs could be required to pay for all or part of their costs. If they are unable to pay, the bill authorizes courts to mandate unpaid labor to offset the costs.

The new bill, advocates say, is the latest chapter in that pattern of turning Black poverty — and all the encompasses like addiction and survival tactics —  into criminalization rather than repair.

New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris said the bill is akin to “internment camps” and would produce “no lasting housing, no services, and no real path forward for the people involved.”

Roughly 1 in 3 Louisiana households are “extremely low income,” according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, meaning a household of four is making $30,000 or less. The organization estimates that there is a shortage of over 100,000 affordable and available homes for extremely low income people.

Jerry, 42, who was fired from his job three years ago after an accident left him injured, said those living on the street are “far from lazy.” He said he doesn’t fear work; he fears that the state is ignoring how he got here.

Jerry, who did not want to share his last name, grew up in New Orleans and remembers when “they had reasonable prices before the storm (Hurricane Katrina),” when a two-bedroom home did not eat an entire paycheck. 

In many ways, Hurricane Katrina did set the stage for a long-term homelessness crisis across the state. Since the storm, Black economic life outcomes have dwindled. 

Katrina shut Black renters out of the region’s post-storm housing market. In New Orleans, Black households that managed to rebuild in places like lower Mid-City saw their properties seized through eminent domain to make way for new developments, while neighboring, majority-white areas moved swiftly to ban or restrict rental housing and block low-income tax credit developments. In one neighboring city, which was 93% white at the time of the storm, a “blood relative” ordinance was passed that  made it illegal to rent to anyone who you weren’t related to, effectively keeping Black renters from returning to the region.

Today, in New Orleans and across Louisiana, the median income for the Black residents remaining is around $20,000, but the median rental price has jumped to $1,600 per month or $19,200 annually. 

Roughly half of the state’s unhoused population lives in New Orleans, despite the metro region only making up 25% of the state’s population. 

When people tell him to “just go to a shelter” in New Orleans, Jerry laughs without smiling. 

“They put you on the waiting list,” he said. “You got to have some type of credentials, paperwork, or ID, right?” But on the streets, he said, it is nearly impossible to keep that paperwork without it being damaged, stolen, or trashed.

“It’s just a redundant cycle — like a hamster on a wheel,” he said. “If you don’t have no phone or no paperwork, you can’t get no shelter, nothing. You can’t even sleep in front of the shelters now.” 

Last year, Alonzo Knox, a Democratic New Orleans representative, attempted to usher through a ban on homeless encampments, but it failed to make it out of the House. This year, Knox introduced a bill directing the Louisiana Department of Health and the state fire marshal to improve access and the standards for unhoused people living at shelters and community facilities, but some legislators and advocates worry it would dip into the state’s pool of money and make it too expensive to offer housing to those in need.

Debbie Villio, a Republican state representative who drafted this year’s anti-homelessness legislation, said the bill “prioritizes and balances accountability, compassion, fiscal responsibility and the long-term wellbeing of individuals, families and neighborhoods.”

The legislation, she said, “integrates criminal justice” and “homelessness response systems into a continuum of care.”

According to an unhoused couple that testified at a hearing related to this year’s bill, it lacks compassion. 

“If they were to walk in our shoes, they would experience the things that we go through,” Sherman Brown said at the hearing.

Since 2020, the state’s unhoused population has fluctuated between 3,000 and 7,500 people. 

“This isn’t right,” Brumfield said.

Read More:

The post In America’s Poorest State, Unhoused People May Soon Be Jailed appeared first on Capital B News.

Less than two weeks before graduation day, students at South Carolina State University learned that a MAGA-supporting politician had been invited to speak at their upcoming commencement ceremony. 

The students wasted no time in taking their grievances about South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette to the school’s president and provost. Three days after the news spread, the invitation was rescinded.

The decision might prove to be a costly victory for the students, however. A small group of Republicans within the South Carolina statehouse is now calling for the state to defund the HBCU.

Evette, who is running for South Carolina’s governor, was one of the Republicans who sided with President Donald Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on college campuses. In February, she also defended Trump’s AI-generated video of Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as apes, deflecting the blame on the media.  

After the invitation was rescinded, Evette responded quickly on social media.

“I must be doing something right because woke mobs are coming after me for being a champion of eliminating radical DEI scams on college campuses,” Evette posted on X on April 28.

Capital B reached out to Evette’s team for comment, but was directed to her social media post due to time constraints.

The HBCU’s decision comes at a time when tensions between conservative voices and those at other universities continue to rise on campuses across the South. Over the past several months, Republicans have introduced several pieces of legislation and mandates that directly impact funding and voting on Black college campuses, sparking a series of protests at Kentucky State University, Florida A&M University, and North Carolina A&T State University. Like the students at South Carolina State, HBCUs have not gone down without a fight, winning some battles and losing others.

In 2023, South Carolina State was among several HBCUs the Biden administration flagged as underfunded by the state, with an estimated shortfall nearing $500 million, according to The State, a local outlet.

Senior journalism major Kimora Aiken said she found out about Evette’s invitation Monday when she saw a petition on Instagram urging the administration to cancel the ceremony scheduled for May 8. 

Inviting Evette “was a slap in the face,” said Aiken, who struggled to understand why the university would choose the lieutenant governor as the speaker. 

Kameron Sutton, a sophomore civil engineering major from Decatur, Georgia, said that when he saw the news on his timeline, he knew that passion was needed to convey how serious the student body was about not having Evette speak at commencement. That’s when he asked the student government president to record a video talking about what’s going on.

From there, several students began planning a series of protests and were inspired by South Carolina State students in the 1960s who protested Civil Rights Era injustices. 

The students spent more than 24 hours earlier this week protesting Evette’s invitation. On Monday, they staged a silent sit-in outside the president’s office. Later, students began marching throughout the campus plaza, video of which has since gone viral on several social media platforms. 

Alexander Conyers, the university president, sent an email to students Wednesday evening announcing that Evette’s invitation had been canceled. Shortly after, he joined the students to deliver the news in person. The university cited safety concerns for the cancellation of the invitation. 

“His first time addressing us was not good enough,” Sutton said. “That was the point of the protest, and for him, that when I heard those words, a sigh of relief came over my body, a wave of understanding came over my body.” 

The university has not publicly announced another speaker and didn’t respond to a Capital B request for comment. 

Josh Singleton, a graduating senior and one of Aiken’s friends, was among some of the graduating seniors organizing the protest. For him, it wasn’t the party affiliation that bothered him. It was the morality of having someone who has openly supported immigration crackdown through detention centers and anti-Black rhetoric, he said. 

“When it came down to the planning, it was really the video of her saying we’re a mob and radicals,” Aiken said. “That really sparked the rest of the student body.” 

Singleton said he’s not letting Evette and other political figures get in the way of his class’ graduation celebration. He’s been telling his classmates to block out the noise, especially since it’s not going to be the first time people use words to get under their skin as Black people. 

“They’ll call us every hateful comment but a child of God,” he said. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Kameron Sutton’s major. Sutton is a civil engineering major.

Read More:

• After FAMU Signed ICE Deal, Students Demanded Answers, and Were Met With Silence
• HBCU Students Walk Miles to the Polls After Campus Sites Are Cut
• A Financial Crisis Could Upend Kentucky’s Only Public HBCU

The post An HBCU Canceled Its MAGA Commencement Speaker, Now Republicans Want to Defund It appeared first on Capital B News.