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No mobile devices in your classroom? No worries! You can enjoy Nearpod from any web browser :) Create, engage, and assess your students in every lesson!

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NearPod: GMAS Rubric/Checklist & Writing the Introduction

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NearPod: GMAS Rubric/Checklist & Writing the Introduction

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Engage and assess your students in every lesson!

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How do journalists utilize critical questions when reporting underreported stories to evaluate the root causes, historical context, and/or lasting human impacts of pressing issues?

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How can underreported stories inspire me to reflect on my own life and history, cultivate curiosity, and ultimately evaluate  how I  can  use the skills of a journalist, including curiosity and critical thinking, to take informed action on important issues?

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How can I engage with underreported news stories to…
* reflect on the role of news?
*take informed action?

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African Americans, by extention, built this country, but in many ways are unwelcomed it's dwellings.

Students will  begin to understand the enduring legacy of American slavery and gain insight into structural racism by examining the impact of place on race, and vice versa, such as, housing policies, housing access and affordability, environmental racism and climate concerns. Students will analyze selected articles from the Pulitzer Center along with at least 1 additional research article to explore the question:

Option 1: How does race impact one’s  physical environment in America and how can we combat this issue at the local level?

Option 2: How does race impact how and where one exists in America  and how can we combat this issue at the local level?

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SWBAT

Understand redlining,  gentrification, environmental racism, inaccessibility of housing and other geography-related  challenges experienced by Black Americans

Conduct sustained research in order to answer a research question

Integrate relevant information from multiple authoritative digital sources into an essay

Create a news report or social media post based on research

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ELAGSE9-10RI1: CITE strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

ELAGSE9-10RI2: DETERMINE a central idea of a text and ANALYZE its development over the course of the text including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; PROVIDE an objective summary of the text.

ELAGSE9-10W7: CONDUCT short as well as more sustained research projects to ANSWER a question (included a self-generated question).

ELAGSE9-10W8: Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

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Our broad topic is systemic racism as it relates to geography, environment & housing.

We have read articles to build background before conducting our research.

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Atlanta advocates warn of environmental damage from 'Cop City'

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Jacqueline Echols loves to take Atlanta residents kayaking on the South River, which begins at the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and flows 63 miles into Lake Jackson. Echols says that it's fun to bring people out on the river who have never paddled before. The river is shallow and bordered by undergrowth and native trees, rich soil, and the occasional deer, making it an unintimidating classroom for those new to the water.

"The South River and the green space around it have a lot to offer," Echols says. "If you're going to invest in a community, the first thing you invest in is green space."

But in Atlanta, a privately funded police foundation is working double-time to expand the police's reach at the cost of the community's access to the city's rich environment. The river and its surrounding forest have become the site of a major battle playing out in Atlanta between the city's police department, backed by many members of the city council and county leaders, and the residents of the neighborhood adjacent to the South River Forest. At issue is whether or not nearly 400 acres of the forest will be handed over to the police department to construct a new training facility, which activists have renamed "Cop City" because of the proposal to build a mock city on the grounds for training. The facility will be constructed on 85 acres of the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, where incarcerated people once grew food for those detained in the city's jail.

"Green space holds value more than any other land, and [when] the environment goes, so does the community," said Echols, who is also board president of the South River Watershed Alliance, an advocacy organization for the fourth-most endangered river in the U.S. "What's going on with the prison farm ... is just devaluing people, devaluing communities, devaluing the environment, and they're doing it because these are very vulnerable communities, marginalized people, and they can get away with it. You know, they can't get away with it in [a wealthy white area like] Buckhead."

A forest can quell climate impacts-if it exists

It's not just that nearby predominantly BIPOC neighborhoods will be subjected to the sounds of gunshots from the facility's proposed shooting range-the facility presents multiple problems for these communities, Atlanta residents say. Under the guise of so-called "rising crime," the mayor's office, Atlanta Police Foundation, and Atlanta Police Department made the surprise announcement to construct the facilities on land owned by the city but technically a part of unincorporated DeKalb County in April 2021, much to the chagrin of community members who had been previously told that the land would be developed into a public park. A city council member introduced legislation on June 7, 2021, to formalize the deal, and by the end of the year it was approved that nearly 400 acres would be leased, with 85 of those acres slated for development. The Atlanta Police already use some of the Old Prison Farm land as a shooting range and testing ground for other weapons; the added acreage would also allow for burn towers and explosives testing.

Now, the execution of the facility is going forward largely without public input and without substantive prior environmental impact analyses, opponents of the facility say, heightening anxieties about how communities will be affected by future natural disasters. Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of weather events, subjecting areas like Atlanta to dozens of tropical storms that previously would have mostly affected coastal regions. Not to mention that average temperatures are rising in Atlanta faster than those in most other cities.

Kelsey Hull, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Foundation, objects to claims that public input was not solicited, saying that APF provided a draft plan to Atlanta city officials and council committees. When the full city council debated "Cop City" in September 2021, Hull says, "more than 400 comments-some 20+ hours of comments-were received by Council, which then voted overwhelmingly to approve building the Public Safety Training Center." According to The Appeal, 70% of the total 1,100 public comments opposed the new facility.

The forest is a critical piece of climate infrastructure, protecting the area from storm runoff, cleaning the air, and providing shade in Atlanta's hot summer months-benefits that are being traded for a measure that activists say will further terrorize Atlanta's Black neighborhoods. Water contamination from storm runoff is a significant risk because of the city's combined sewer system-when there's extreme rain, water in the pipes overflows and discharges waste to dump into streams and rivers, which could prove hazardous for both the people in surrounding areas and the environment.

The South River Forest is what Kathryn Kolb, an Atlanta-based naturalist, photographer, and founder of the environmental organization Eco Addendum, would call a recovering native forest home to a scattering of old-growth trees. Kolb says that "from an ecological perspective, it would kind of be a shame" to place the proposed facility at the Old Atlanta Prison Farm. The forest is recovering from decades of logging, farming, and construction, and is on the verge of flourishing again. It would be an incredible loss to squander the forest's potential recovery and what that would mean for Atlanta residents.

A healthy and thriving forest could provide even greater climate benefits. Healthy soils, especially those near older trees, absorb rainwater and mitigate stormwater runoff, thus preventing flooding. This is critical in Atlanta, a city that's experienced a 75% increase in heavy downpours in the last seven decades. Forests and especially older trees also help clean the air-which has improved in recent years-by removing about 19 million pounds of pollution annually. Kolb also says that research has shown that simply walking through a forested area and breathing in the ecosystem's air has a direct positive impact on one's immune system.

The South River Forest also plays a critical role in maintaining biodiversity. It's home to wetlands and other riparian bodies that protect against extreme heat and weather events like hurricanes. Waterways and trees with healthy soil can act as a balm against " heat island effect," a term that describes how industrial structures like buildings and roadways absorb and release heat. The tree cover in formerly redlined southwest Atlanta protects against the worst consequences of the heat island effect. According to Echols, tree cover is "the only thing we have to mitigate those impacts."

Green space is for everyone

Kolb says that in most major cities people of color are forced into neighborhoods blighted by a lack of parks and other green space. But in Atlanta, known as the City in a Forest, many communities of color live near forested areas. The benefits of living near trees and green space abound for people of color, who disproportionately bear the brunt of disinvestment and climate impacts, Kolb says. She says some research has even shown that simply living within half a mile of green space-even if one never sets foot in it- decreases the likelihood of over a dozen major diseases, like depression and anxiety.

In the neighborhoods surrounding the South River Forest, 71-88% of residents are Black, with asthma rates in the 94th percentile and diabetes in the 80th percentile nationally. The vast majority of residents live at or below the federal poverty level, and the neighborhoods rank in the 96th percentile nationally for toxic water pollution. Cutting down trees, leaching construction materials into soil, and polluting waterways with heavy metal toxins found in bullets and grenades, which would be used in police training, would further place the neighborhoods' residents at risk.

Even with the reprieve from hot days that forests provide, cities with green spaces, like Atlanta, are struggling against more days of extreme heat each summer. A dangerous heat day, categorized as high humidity and heat (over 90 degrees) for at least two days, can lead to heat stroke and even death. And while Atlanta currently experiences around 20 of these days a year, that number is expected to quadruple in the next 30 years. Black people are disproportionately exposed to and affected by extreme heat, and counties with more Black residents are more likely to have extreme heat days.

In addition to the alarming amount of damage the facility's construction would cause to the environment, the vast majority of residents living near the forest simply don't want the facility to be built near them, or even at all. A poll conducted by Atlanta-based Social Insights Research found that 98% of residents oppose the new training facility in the forest, and 90% oppose any new facility being built in Atlanta. Eighty-four percent of respondents said that they'd prefer the Old Atlanta Prison Farm be developed into park space. Atlanta residents are even willing to pay millions every year to support urban forests.

"If [construction of the police facility] takes place, I don't want to live here," said Tinsley Ginn, a resident of the Gresham Park neighborhood in Atlanta since 2000, who lives about a quarter of a mile from the forest.

At one point, the intention for the land was preservation-not development. Back in 2017, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) of Georgia announced a plan to restore the Old Atlanta Prison Farm and make it a key tract in a larger vision of connected parklands in the southeast part of Atlanta. In 2020, the organization got the approval from the Atlanta Regional Commission to conduct interviews with community members and begin developing a strategy for conserving 3,500 acres of green space in the area. The Old Atlanta Prison Farm and the South River Forest were "the heart" of that plan, says Deron Davis, executive director TNC in Georgia.

The April 2021 announcement for the training facility by former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms came as a shock, particularly because there's been "no community process at all," Davis says.

"One day the city committed the land to green space, the next day she announced that it would be a public safety training center," said Davis.

Ginn says she invited all of the DeKalb County commissioners to come to her neighborhood to experience the forest-and the impacts of the existing police weapons testing-firsthand. No one got back to her.

Now, with the city angling to push through the facility's construction, Davis says that his organization is focused on executing the project plan without the 85 acres that have been promised to the facility. In fact, rather than find another location for the police training facility, Atlanta officials are looking at other parcels of land of equal size to the prison farm to purchase for conservation under TNC's stewardship.

"My dad brought me up to have reverence for the forest and the things living in it," Ginn said. "I walk down [to the forest] basically every day. I have for 20 years. It's where I go to regain my sanity, [and] it's gradually been whittled away."

Pushing back against the land grab

The systemic forces that lead to environmental racism, evidenced by waste and Superfund sites situated predominantly near Black neighborhoods, are why TNC wanted to center the connected green space plan in southeast Atlanta.

"I absolutely believe that there has been a long history of disinvestment in this area," Davis says. "I think it is a reasonable assumption that, in part, is because the 'powerful people' did not live in this part of the city."

According to organizers, the "powerful people" are still intent on using false narratives to continue that disinvestment. According to Kamau Franklin, the founder of the grassroots anti-gentrification organization Community Movement Builders, the main ones are the myths of the dominating problem of rising crime and that the facility has garnered major public support. Neither of which are true, he says.

"Even under the best circumstances, the center would take three-to-five years to build, so there's no way it has anything to do with the idea of stopping crime," said Franklin.

In Atlanta, violent crime had been falling since 2013, concurrent with a shrinking police force. The lack of substantive support to belay the financial and social fallout of the pandemic, not to mention a failure to adequately address the public health crisis itself, means that across the country, crimes of poverty went up. Of any mainland U.S. city, Atlanta ranks the highest in terms of income inequality. Alec Karakatsanis, the founder and executive director of the Civil Rights Corps, a legal advocacy organization, says that given how often police lie, how some actions are criminalized while others are not, and the mounting evidence that more police do not make communities safer, responding to narratives of rising crime with more police would be like responding to climate change by donating to oil companies.

Rather than being about crime, Franklin says that the city's permission to build "Cop City" "is a gift to the police." Community Movement Builders organizing director Jasmine Burnett says that the proposal is a direct response to organizing and protests in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd and killing of Rayshard Brooks in 2020. Demands of defunding the police and investing in community programs "really scared city council members, scared the executives and the elites in the city, and that's when they really put their foot on the gas to get this 'Cop City' project moving forward," Burnett says.

Community Movement Builders is taking a multi-pronged approach to protecting the forest and preventing the facility from being built, though some tree removal has begun, advocates on the ground say. Franklin says that they plan to target those who sit on the board of the Atlanta Police Foundation, a funding group that solicited $90 million in private funding for the project, whose board boasts representatives from Accenture, UPS, and Amazon. The project has also received funding support from Cox Enterprises President and CEO Alex Taylor; Cox owns the major newspaper in Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

They're also staging demonstrations downtown, at City Hall, in the forest, and on the doorsteps of the corporations funding the project; Coca Cola, headquartered in Atlanta, quit the board of the Atlanta Police Foundation because of CMB's work, Franklin says. The national racial justice organization Color of Change has also stepped in to help with social media campaigns and petition work. Gathering this data is critical, Burnett says, given how officials are relying on the premise that residents support the facility's construction.

The police department remains unmoved by the protests and community apprehensions over the potential consequences of the facility's construction. In an email response to inquiries from Prism, a representative with the police department said the department is undeterred from its "mission of constructing this state-of-the-art public safety training facility that will allow us to teach and train recruits and our tenured police officers and firefighters in an environment that is safe, aesthetically pleasing, and technically capable of moving public safety training forward."

Organizers see the sale as a legal land grab made possible by a confusing bureaucratic process between the two local governments involved. DeKalb County Commissioner Ted Terry explains that because the City of Atlanta owns the land, it doesn't have to follow the county's zoning regulations or go through a public planning process. Terry says he would prefer the training facility be built in another location, but given that he's "only in charge of DeKalb County," it's not in his "ability to force any sort of changes."

Hull says that the city surveyed a number of spaces for the potential facility before settling on the Old Prison Farm and South River Forest, given that "qualified sites needed to be quickly accessible to the City, affordable, able to be developed in the relative near term, and afford minimal disruption to nearby residents," Hull said.

Reverend Avis Williams, a local faith and community leader, says that this kind of mentality is equivalent to "passing the buck." Williams has also made calls to city officials asking for environmental reviews and more information on the project, but has been given, as she says, "the runaround." There's still time to prevent construction, Williams says, and she's hopeful that someone with influence in the city or state governments will step up and align with community members.

"I mean, who's not for clean air?" Williams said.

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Atlanta advocates warn of environmental damage from 'Cop City'

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The police training facility will harm the endangered South River and further contribute to environmental racism

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Georgia Renters Enjoy Few Protections as Landlords Seek To Evict

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Georgia Renters Enjoy Few Protections as Landlords Seek To Evict

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Georgia Renters Enjoy Few Protections as Landlords Seek To Evict

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Atlanta, Georgia/United States-January 24 2018: An unidentified homeless person sits on a bench in midtown Atlanta on Peachtree Street. Image by Image Alleviation/Shutterstock. United States, 2018.

Jazman Innman, a truck driver, moved to the Atlanta suburbs in early 2020 for his kids. He brought his 15-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son to DeKalb County for the schools, and declined more lucrative jobs that would require time away from his family.

Then the pandemic struck, and his hours shrunk. Innman said he went from driving 12 hours a day to driving eight, and then from working every week to having weeks off.

"Next thing you know ... everything shut down," Innman said. "It's like, 'Damn.' Instantaneously, the world is closed."

In May, Innman's Decatur apartment complex, East Perimeter Pointe, served him with an eviction notice.

While Innman said he'll be able to make ends meet and pay his late rent, thousands of other tenants in Georgia may not.

On March 14, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton issued a statewide "judicial emergency" halting all nonessential state court functions. The emergency order - extended five times and currently set to expire Sept. 10 - effectively halted eviction proceedings in the state.

Yet landlords were still free to file paperwork laying the groundwork for evictions during the judicial emergency and continued to do so, creating a backlog of cases. Housing experts, lawyers and activists fear what lies ahead in a state with minimal protections for tenants.

Rather than waiting for the courts to reopen, some landlords are taking matters into their own hands, said Lauren Sudeall, a law professor and director of the Center for Access to Justice at Georgia State University.

"Landlords can post a notice saying, 'You have to leave or you're going to be evicted,' or they can change the locks - things which are not legal," Sudeall said. "But somebody in that tenant position might not know what procedures they have to be accorded."

Georgia has no legal right to counsel in civil cases, including eviction cases, and proceedings can begin if rent is even a day late. Moreover, landlords are not required to serve tenants with a written notice to vacate, according to Alison Slagowitz, a lawyer with the Georgia Legal Services Program.

"The Georgia [eviction] procedure provides the bare minimum of due process as required by the Constitution," she said. "It's very easy to evict someone without them knowing."

Outside big cities like Atlanta, there's even less legal support for renters facing eviction.

A number of counties in Georgia are considered "legal deserts," areas with few practicing lawyers. Of the 159 counties in Georgia, 64 of them had 10 or fewer active lawyers in 2016, according to Sudeall. Five counties had none.

One Georgia Legal Services Program in south Georgia has just seven attorneys covering a 29-county area, according to the Harvard Law and Policy Review study "Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective on Rural Access to Justice."

Phyllis Holmen, former executive director of Georgia Legal Services, said in the Harvard study that each legal aid lawyer in Georgia "has 13,000 potential clients, based on the poverty population of the area they serve."

Sudeall, who also contributed to the legal deserts study, said in many cases, eviction court in rural communities "is being held without any lawyers at all."

"The judge is not always a lawyer, the landlord and the tenant usually don't have a lawyer,'' Sudeall said. "So you have a legal process being conducted without any lawyers involved."

Because there is no legal right to counsel and limited access to lawyers, most tenants go without one. An analysis by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found that even in the more populous Savannah and Atlanta areas, less than 1% of eviction cases in county courts involved an attorney since Jan. 2019.

Increased development has contributed to rising rents across the state, leading to increased housing instability and evictions, particularly for Black, working-class communities.

In DeKalb County, filings in predominantly white neighborhoods fell 92% in the months after the judicial emergency was declared, while filings in nonwhite neighborhoods declined 86%. And in Fulton County, eviction filings in white neighborhoods fell by 90% compared to 85% in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods, according to an analysis by the Howard Center.

"A lot of our clients are single Black mothers with a history of domestic violence, so they're really coming up from nothing," Slagowitz said. "They're worried, because if someone evicts them, where are they gonna go?"

In Chatham County, where Savannah is located, much of the city's economy is tied up in hospitality and retail. Advocates fear the city's homelessness rate - already the second highest in the state - will get much worse.

"It's a double whammy," said Cindy Kelley, the executive director of the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless. "People came here for jobs, but there's no affordable housing."

Due to the judicial emergency, that hasn't translated into more eviction filings. In July 2020, there were 278 eviction cases filed in Chatham County Magistrate Court. In July 2019, that number was 981.

The same is true in Atlanta. In Fulton and DeKalb counties, which make up most of the city and its suburbs, landlords and property managers filed 1,136 evictions in July 2020. During the same month in 2019, they filed 7,268.

Innman's apartment complex has filed more than 180 additional eviction cases since March, accounting for 8% of evictions filed in DeKalb County since the judicial emergency took hold.

The property is owned by Ventron Management, which owns seven other complexes in the county, and another 12 across the state. Erez Hon, Ventron's chief financial officer, said the company has an automatic filing process, which begins court proceedings mid-month if rent is not paid on the first and the tenant has not set up a payment plan.

Advocates are worried about the impending expiration of the judicial emergency, and what it might mean for renters facing eviction. In Chatham County, in-person proceedings have already restarted; DeKalb and Fulton counties are currently scheduling proceedings, but have yet to resume them.

More than 6,000 evictions were filed with courts in Fulton, DeKalb and Chatham counties between March 14, when the judicial emergency began, and July 31. Nearly 4,500 of those cases remained open.

"It just doesn't seem like there's the political will" to address the impending eviction crisis, said John Marshall, a law professor at Georgia State University.

The aid necessary to support Georgia renters, including extended income replacement, "is the type of government aid that the federal government currently seems not willing to pursue," he said.
Trisha Ahmed contributed information for this report. Ahmed, Lerner and Hodjat reported for the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. This project is a collaboration among the University of Maryland's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, Big Local News at Stanford University, the University of Arkansas and Boston University. It was supported by grants from the Pulitzer Center, the Scripps Howard Foundation and the Park Foundation. COVID-19 Update: The connection between local and global issues-the Pulitzer Center's long standing mantra-has, sadly, never been more evident. We are uniquely positioned to serve the journalists, news media organizations, schools and universities we partner with by continuing to advance our core mission: enabling great journalism and education about underreported and systemic issues that resonate now-and continue to have relevance in times ahead. We believe that this is a moment for decisive action. Learn more about the steps we are taking.

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Georgia Renters Enjoy Few Protections as Landlords Seek To Evict

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Georgia Renters Enjoy Few Protections as Landlords Seek To Evict. Jazman Innman, a truck driver, moved to the Atlanta suburbs in early 2020 for his kids. He brought his 15-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son to DeKalb County for the schools, and declined more...

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'Place Matters:' J.C. Smith University Makes Sustainability Part of Activism

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Place Matters:’ J.C. Smith University Makes Sustainability Part of Activism

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Place Matters:’ J.C. Smith University Makes Sustainability Part of Activism

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Students check on produce at Johnson C. Smith University's Sustainability Village on the Beatties Ford Road campus. Image courtesy of Johnson C. Smith University.

Green is the new Black at Johnson C. Smith University.

JCSU's Sustainability Village is more than a collection of plants, fish and renewable energy. It's a connector for neighborhoods in Historic West End in terms of conservation, energy production, food security, and environmental justice. As a historically Black university anchoring a rapidly changing community, there's urgency in its mission through education and activism.

"If you do not understand your connection to your environment, you are in a position to be exploited by those who are exploiting the resources that you depend on, whether you realize it or not," said Marc Dugo PhD, director of JCSU's Center for Renewable Energy & Sustainability. "Therefore, it behooves you to get that knowledge to understand your connection, simply from a social environmental justice standpoint, to make sure that you can be a strong advocate for your own individual rights and protection against environmental injustice."

By emphasizing the twin assets of modern technology and old-school community activism, many of the country's 107 HBCUs are taking a more proactive approach to climate change and sustainability on campus and beyond.

At the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, for example, its Agricultural Experiment Station conducts research in sustainable agriculture through biofuels and geospatial information technologies. The school also set aside 20 acres of land to develop a 2.1 megawatt, or 2.1 million watts, solar farm and launched a workforce training program for agriculture and renewable energy jobs.

The University of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. - the country's lone urban land-grant college - oversees the Center for Sustainable Development & Resilience, an urban farm with a hydroponics garden and food-producing green roof. UDC also offers academic programs in urban sustainability and water resources management.

The Mickey Leland Center for Environmental Justice and Sustainability at Texas Southern University in Houston organized a Climate Justice Roundtable and cohosts the HBCU Climate Change Student Conference with Dillard University in Louisiana. TSU also operates solar-powered cell phone charging stations and sponsors an annual Campus Sustainability Day, as well as the Climate Education Community-University Partnership, a consortium of HBCUs and vulnerable communities in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast, where catastrophic climate events like hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves and flooding are more likely to impact Black people.

"Place matters," Dugo said. "Where are you are in ZIP code, you can use that as the identifier [that] can determine in large part major predictors of your quality of health, your income, and even your environmental exposures from an environmental justice standpoint, because all of these things are interrelated. [...] Within the city of Charlotte [there isn't equality] in terms of those social metrics. ZIP code matters, and you have gentrification, [a] topic that's relevant here in this very corridor [...]

"I don't have all the answers, but I do know that being engaged and aware and advocating for yourself, for your family, for your local community, is what you must do if you want to see positive change."

HBCUs also collaborate with grassroots supporters and crowdfunding for resources, too. The HBCU Green Fund finances projects that reduce energy and water costs on campuses. Those savings are reinvested into a sustainability program to finance additional projects.

One initiative is Atlanta University Center Fellows Program, which connects students at Spelman and Morehouse colleges and Clark Atlanta University with entrepreneurs and professionals for training, mentoring and internships in energy and STEM industries.

The partnership between HBCU Green Fund and Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for the AUC program.

"The inaugural AUC fellowship was a huge success," HBCU Green Fund national program director Illai Kenney posted on the nonprofit's website. "Whether you look at the increase in catastrophic climate events or the impacts of oil on the global economy, the critical need for a swift transition to clean energy is clear. This program will help expand the pipeline of skilled professionals required to achieve energy independence. We're proud that AUC Fellows are primed to train their peers, educate their communities, and capitalize on emerging green infrastructure opportunities."

In February, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched an internal council to foster stronger ties with HBCUs. The goal is to identify opportunities to recruit HBCU students and support the campuses through grants, contracts, data sharing and community engagement.

"It is fantastic to see the EPA finally lift up HBCUs since our schools have played an outsize role over the decades in training generations of leaders and seeding justice movements - including environmental and climate justice," said Robert Bullard, Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning & Environmental Policy at Texas Southern University and an environmental justice pioneer.

"Hopefully, this new EPA initiative will help strengthen the education and training infrastructure, research centers, and community-university partnerships at HBCUs and support organizations that uniquely serve some of our most vulnerable populations and communities."

Black colleges also develop graduates in STEM and environmental fields, where people of color represent less than 16% of the workforce in related organizations such as nonprofits, government agencies and foundations. JCSU launched a sustainability minor in 2020 to create an academic pathway into the field.

"What I say to students is that whether or not you're fully bought into the sustainability movement, the world that your children and their children are going to live in is going to be entirely different from the world that your parents and grandparents," Dugo said. "Certainly, this change is coming. It's happening. We have no choice."

JCSU, which enrolls about 1,300 students, has been engaged in sustainability initiatives since 1989 when Professor Joseph Fail was hired to launch CRES. The school taps into renewable energy - specifically wind and solar - to create electricity for campus buildings. Students grow vegetables in raised beds and greenhouses as well as fish in hydroponic tanks for farm-to-fork programs on campus and farmers' markets. They also engage Historic West End residents - many of whom live in neighborhoods that lack access to healthy food choices - on sustainability initiatives.

"I absolutely would say that progress is being made, and I think depending on who you are in your position in life, that's always a debatable topic, particularly as it relates to social justice," said Dugo, who previously led the sustainability program at historically Black Mississippi Valley State University. "But there's a lot of work yet to be done.

"We're not there yet, but we have momentum. We want to really just build on the momentum that's there and get more folks invested in what's going on in the local space."

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'Place Matters:' J.C. Smith University Makes Sustainability Part of Activism

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'Place Matters:' J.C. Smith University Makes Sustainability Part of Activism. Green is the new Black at Johnson C. Smith University. JCSU's Sustainability Village is more than a collection of plants, fish and renewable energy. It's a connector for neighborhoods in Historic West...

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In Charlotte and Across the South, Climate Risk Tied to History of Racism

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In Charlotte and Across the South, Climate Risk Tied to History of Racism

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In Charlotte and Across the South, Climate Risk Tied to History of Racism

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Charlotte, like other urban areas in America, have a history of environmental racism against Black people through underinvestment in communities and legal and social segregation. Modern threats include development that has created an urban heat island of asphalt, glass and concrete, which increases the chances of heat-related illness and death. Image by Troy Hull. United States.

First in a series.
Environmental racism is Charlotte's dirty long-running secret.

If you're Black, you're more likely to be exposed to polluted air, land and water. In addition, Black people are less likely to have access to economic resources due to racial bias that resulted in a lack of investment in their communities as industrial-scale pollution is developed near their neighborhoods.

In short, racial bias, economics and climate justice are inseparable.

"Big businesses and biomass plants, wood pellet plants and fossil field, and everything that pollute - including utilities companies and corporations - are intentional in going in the most marginalized communities and causing disruption," Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP President the Rev. Corine Mack said in October at a rally of environmental activists of faith. "We're out here on a beautiful God-given day. It's wonderful out here, but somewhere in the state of North Carolina and all over this world, someone is getting sick because of the intentional pollution of our air and our water and our environment. We've got to do better."

History of environmental racism

For all the emphasis on Charlotte's glossy pretense as a progressive New South city, its past makes clear an environmental policy rooted in racial separation. Black people - regardless of their economic status - were relegated to communities located near industrial polluters that left residents exposed to significant risk of poor health outcomes from asthma to cancer.

"Think of fossil fuels and the climate crisis as the evil twins of injustice across the United States and across the world," said William Barber III, climate and economic justice director at The Climate Reality Project in Washington, D.C. "Fossil fuel developments like refineries and pipelines that poison the air, poison the water and soil, they don't get built in the fancy parts of town."

Said Tom Hanchett, a historian at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library: "If you go way back and you look at where the most well to do neighborhoods are, they're in the parts of the city where the railroads weren't. That is because that was the most desirable place from an environmental standpoint because you had trains belching out smoke all the time, so you wanted to be in southeast Charlotte because there's no railroad running down Providence Road. You go back that far, and that's true for sure."

Even as America's social and political fabric became less segregated midway through the 20th century, there was little consideration of environmental hazards, especially as it related to Black people. For example, the 576-home Double Oaks community along Statesville Avenue, which was redeveloped into the more upscale Brightwalk neighborhood early in the 21st century, was built in 1950 by the C.D. Spangler Construction Company atop a trash dump.

Among the neighboring facilities: A munitions plant where Nike missiles were produced in the 1950s and '60s for the Army, and later, space exploration components for NASA. That site closed in 1967.

"It included land where the city's landfill had been," Hanchett said. "And since that area was redeveloped as Brightwalk, they worked very carefully to cap that and mitigate [pollution hazards]. But it had been sitting there underneath Double Oaks from the time that Double Oaks opened until it was redeveloped as Brightwalk in the early 2000s."

Higher stakes involved

Black Charlotteans are still at risk of pollution-related hazards, and there's a growing awareness of the stakes involved. Across Mecklenburg, African American institutions are creating initiatives to address the climate crisis along with social change. Activist organizations like the local NAACP are collaborating with like-minded peers to create racial and cultural diversity in the environmentalist movement.

That urgency is born of necessity in Mecklenburg, the only county in North Carolina to score "F" on the American Lung Association's annual State of the Air report. For Black neighborhoods near major streets and highways - specifically interstates and their connectors - elevated exposure to air pollution due to carbon emissions from vehicles is as much a matter of economics as racist policy. Blacks, according to a study, breathe in 56% more particulate matter such as soot or smog than they produce, and those with asthma are three time more likely to need medical attention or dying from an attack than whites.

"There's a whole lot of economics entwined in this and separating the economic part and the racial part is really difficult," Hanchett said. "If you look at the map that's in this book I wrote called 'Sorting out the New South City,' there's a map of Charlotte in 1980 and to help people orient themselves on the map, I included interstates 77, 85 and 277. And only belatedly did I start to think about where they ran and they all ran through neighborhoods that were predominantly Black, and at this point, it's impossible for me to disentangle how much of that was malice on the part of folks who set those roots. They were all planned before the 1965 Voting Rights Act opened [political] seats at the table for African Americans.

"But at the same time, the taxpayers [want] you to run the expensive [road] project through the least expensive land and so the African American neighborhoods, often the land was less expensive. That's a great example of where the racial inequality and the economic inequality dovetail and reinforce each other."

Said Barber: "Thanks to histories of racial segregation and discrimination they most often get built near low-income families and communities of color. Sixty-eight percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal fired power plant, driving inequities in terms of exposure to long term air pollution."

Dangers of southern living

The specter of pollution isn't the only hazard Black people face. Climate change also has a disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities that lack the economic muscle or flexibility to mitigate those hazards.

According to a study by Princeton University researchers, "people of color are found to be particularly more vulnerable to heatwaves, extreme weather events, environmental degradation, and subsequent labor market dislocations."

Sweltering heat - a summer staple in the South - takes a greater toll on Black people than other ethnic groups. According to data from the Killer Heat Report, authored by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, the average number of days with a heat index above 105 degrees Fahrenheit is higher in counties where African Americans make up at least 25% of the population (about twice the national average) compared to those that are not.

As a result, counties like Mecklenburg, which is 33% Black, are exposed to as many as three additional days of extreme temperatures annually than those where Blacks make up smaller percentages. Researchers expect about 20 more extreme heat days per year by mid-century for so-called urban heat islands, or UHIs, which occur "because cities are much warmer than surrounding rural areas - cities resemble an 'island' of heat among a broader 'sea' of cooler temperatures," UCS senior climate justice and health scientist Adrienne Hollis Ph.D wrote in a 2019 blog.

"Concrete, glass, asphalt, and other surfaces that make up cities trap heat during the day and then release it at night, but it escapes much slower than it was trapped, so there is not much relief from the heat."

Scientists also cite diminished tree cover - a growing concern in Charlotte, where their canopy has been decimated by decades of development - as a key contributor to UHI.

"I think it's safe to say that we are probably seriously underestimating the real number of extreme heat days that African Americans in these counties really experience," Hollis wrote.

Looking through the prism of history, it's easy to link the impact of climate-related events in the South to race. Even before the American Revolution, slavery was a precursor to economic and political inequality. Since emancipation at the end of the Civil War, poorer, less-educated, and sicker African Americans are disproportionately southern - where more than half of the nation's Black population live.

Tackling climate policy

Longstanding bias in housing, education, employment, and healthcare policies exacerbates inequalities that contribute to greater climate impact vulnerability. As a result of increased exposure to events like flooding, hurricanes and tornadoes, Black southerners are often at risk of losing their homes, if not their lives, because they can't afford to move or rebuild.

It's no different in Charlotte, which is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis and gentrification.

"Like every American city that I know about, the stuff that you liked to be living next to the least, folks that ended up living next to it were the folks that had the least power," Hanchett said.

Reversing the impact of environmental racism and climate change requires initiative and intent, said Barber, who lives in Durham and is the son of human rights activist the Rev. William Barber II.

"As we face across the globe the present climate crisis of a pandemic," the younger Barber said, "as we wrestle with the timeline of an environmental crisis, the climate crisis where we find ourselves racing against an ever-ticking clock; as we wrestle with the crisis of poverty that has for too long plagued the most vulnerable among us, we must remember that justice is an action word."

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In Charlotte and Across the South, Climate Risk Tied to History of Racism

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In Charlotte and Across the South, Climate Risk Tied to History of Racism. First in a series. Environmental racism is Charlotte's dirty long-running secret. If you're Black, you're more likely to be exposed to polluted air, land and water. In addition, Black people are less...

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Amid Water Crisis, Majority-Black Town Faces Higher Utility Bills

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Amid Water Crisis, Majority-Black Town Faces Higher Utility Bills

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Amid Water Crisis, Majority-Black Town Faces Higher Utility Bills

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Former Duquesne Mayor Nickole Nesby stands in front of a neighbor's house. Image by Catharine Smith. United States, 2021.

Kim Gaither doesn't drink the tap water in her home. Many of her neighbors don't either. She sometimes notices a rusty color and sulfuric smells when she runs the faucet, she says.

"Every now and then, I'll go to wash my hands, and I'll notice that brown tint," said Gaither, 59, who rents a house nestled in the rolling hills outside Pittsburgh.

Her city water authority says it's safe to drink from the tap. But Gaither and other Duquesne residents opt for bottled water, even when brushing their teeth.

Gaither lost her job as a home health aide while COVID-19 ravaged majority-Black communities like Duquesne, where she's lived since 2018. She fell behind on her water payments during the pandemic, something that never happened when she was working, she said.

On Dec. 15, 2020, the city cut off her water service. For seven days, she walked down the street to shower at a cousin's house. When she had to use the toilet at her own place, she poured bottled water down the bowl to flush.

A local nonprofit eventually paid nearly $600 to reconnect her service. Dozens of other Duquesne residents who fell behind on their bills also sought emergency help from mutual aid groups during the first pandemic winter. Some still have delinquent bills.

COVID-19 only worsened a crisis that's existed for years in financially distressed cities like Gaither's, where more than a third of the 5,200 residents live in poverty. Utility payments are a heavy burden on these households, and it doesn't help that the average water bill in America has soared throughout the last decade, likely squeezing low-income communities and people of color the hardest.

Situations like the one in Duquesne can attract deep-pocketed private companies like Pennsylvania American Water, a subsidiary of American Water Works, the nation's largest investor-owned water firm. Private companies position themselves as a quick fix for small municipalities starved for manpower, expertise, and funding to address water issues. Going private could push bills even higher for communities like Duquesne. Yet the dire state of the nation's infrastructure means more communities from coast to coast are considering a sale of their drinking water networks.

Duquesne's tap water could be next. American Water Works is busy acquiring municipal water and sewer systems across the country, and its Keystone State branch has been on a spree the last few years. Pennsylvania American Water already operates in the Duquesne area, supplying wastewater service for the city and adjacent towns. It also controls the drinking water across a swath of nearby cities.

For now, a public utility still supplies Duquesne's drinking water. But improving the system could cost millions of dollars that the city doesn't have, said Nickole Nesby, Duquesne's former mayor, whose term ended in January.

"We should be living better," said Nesby, 51. "Water shouldn't be an issue."

Nesby said she met with representatives from Pennsylvania American Water in November 2020 to discuss the future of her city's drinking water. The meeting was merely exploratory, Nesby said, noting the city still values the revenue it collects from residents' water bills. But, she added, they did not rule out future discussions. The company did not comment on the meeting.

Anti-privatization advocates say similar scenarios often result in a sale.

"It's disaster capitalism," said Brittany Alston, deputy research director for the Action Center on Race and the Economy. "In these poor communities, specifically Black and brown communities, water systems are up for sale as soon as the community needs money."

Duquesne resident Burton "Burt" Comensky says he drives to a natural spring to collect drinking water. He says it tastes better than the water from his tap at home. Image by Catharine Smith. United States, 2021.

The race to acquire

America's water industry is a tangled mess of mostly small municipal authorities that operate crumbling pipes. Since the 1980s, federal infrastructure spending has not kept pace with maintenance needs and regulatory compliance, leaving state and local governments with a larger share of the tab. Communities across the nation are now weighing their options, as deferred costs pile up, and local authorities scramble to find modern solutions to their aging infrastructure without raising taxes. It's unclear how President Biden's massive infrastructure package will affect their decisions. Private companies tend to swoop in with a tempting offer: a large, one-time injection of funds into city coffers, in exchange for public water or wastewater infrastructure.

Plenty of cities are cashing out. Privatization of the nation's public water networks has slowly, quietly, accelerated the last few years, according to industry analysts. Up to 15% of Americans pay private companies for the right to flush their toilet or turn on their kitchen faucet-and nearly half these people use networks controlled by a handful of investor-owned behemoths like American Water Works. Private companies acquired over 130 municipal operators since 2015, adding about a million new people to their customer ranks, per market analysis from Bluefield Research.

Most of these recent deals serve small and mid-sized communities: anywhere between 400 to 45,000 people, said Heike Doerr, who studies water utilities for S&P Global Market Intelligence.

"The Philadelphia water system, the New York City water system, they're unlikely to get taken over," Doerr said. "They have the economies of scale and the technical expertise to manage things like cybersecurity. A smaller city might not be able to allocate the resources to something like that."

In addition, 14 states, including Pennsylvania, have laws that enable companies to gobble up municipal water and wastewater systems at high prices. Companies can later seek regulatory approval to raise customers' bills to cover the cost of buying and rehabbing the systems. These so-called "fair market value" laws have helped catalyze deals that are especially attractive for under-resourced communities desperate to keep the lights on in city hall or fund police pensions.

"The legislation enables municipalities to consider selling because they'll get a larger amount than they would otherwise," Doerr said.

All this is welcome news for New Jersey-based American Water Works, the leading investor-owned buyer of municipal systems across the country. The company boasts more than 14 million customers, with subsidiaries servicing people in 14 states, most of which have fair market value laws. Since 2010, it's added hundreds of thousands of new customers to its footprint. It plans to continue buying small and mid-sized cities' infrastructure, said President and CEO Susan Hardwick at an earnings call in July.

Pennsylvania, where private companies control around a third of the population's water and wastewater, is ground-zero for municipal buyouts. American Water Works' local subsidiary here has been leading these takeovers since the state's fair-market law passed in 2016. At the beginning of September, the firm had closed 10 fair-market deals across the state, adding tens of thousands of new customers, according to public records. The firm says it now serves more than 2 million people in the state.

Its next largest competitor, Aqua America, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania-based water giant Essential Utilities, has also bought up a handful of systems since 2016. Recently, Aqua has met fierce resistance from residents in multiple areas where the company aims to expand, mostly in the eastern part of the state, near Philadelphia. By contrast, Pennsylvania American Water's buying spree hasn't attracted as much backlash.

Jennie Shade, head of government relations at the state Municipal Authorities Association, said Pennsylvania American Water is moving at a feverish pace to discuss new deals. "Every other week, I'll get an email from one of our 700 members. It's so inundating," she said. Only a small number of these discussions result in deals, Shade noted.

An abandoned house in Duquesne, PA. Image by Catharine Smith. United States, 2021.

Pennsylvania is a fitting location for this explosion of activity, since American Water Works has deep roots in the state. In 1886, a pair of brothers in McKeesport, which shares a border with Duquesne, founded the firm's first iteration, the American Water Works and Guarantee Company, according to an authorized company history published in 1991. In 2017, McKeesport became the site of the state's first fair-market purchase, when Pennsylvania American Water bought the city's sewer system for $159 million. The deal included Duquesne and a handful of other small towns that are part of McKeesport's wastewater network.

Pennsylvania American Water then took over eight more municipal wastewater systems in the state, according to public records. The firm wasn't a newcomer in some of those towns-it had already controlled their drinking water for years.

This spring, the company completed what it calls the biggest acquisition in Pennsylvania American Water history, paying $235 million for the sewer system in the city of York, which serves nearly 14,000 people, plus another 30,000 in surrounding towns connected to the network. The deal closed despite a rare showing of opposition from those surrounding towns.

Doerr, the S&P analyst, said wastewater is a relatively new focus for acquisition-hungry private water firms. In Pennsylvania, most municipal takeovers now involve sewer systems. American Water has acquired just one city water system in Pennsylvania under the state's fair-value law, according to public records.

If Pennsylvania American Water were to seriously court Duquesne, the city council-not the mayor-would ultimately decide whether to sell. Multiple council members did not respond to inquiries about whether they'd been approached by the company recently, or if they'd consider such a proposition.

Higher and higher bills

After the city of Duquesne turned Kim Gaither's water service back on, she continued missing payments. The pandemic was still raging, and Gaither hadn't returned to work. By the fall of 2021, she owed hundreds of dollars. The city shut off her water again. This time, the cutoff lasted weeks, until she got help from family and paid off her balance, she said.

During that time, Gaither said she also fell behind on her sewer payments to Pennsylvania American Water. The company never shut off her service.

Whether Gaither is paying a public or private utility, those bills are her largest expense after rent, she said. Private service does tend to be more expensive than public, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. In 2016, Food and Water Watch, an anti-privatization advocacy group, surveyed the 500 largest community water systems across the country and found that Pennsylvania households hooked up to private systems paid 84 percent more than they would for a municipal supplier-that's $323 more a year, the report said. A similar analysis published this year in the journal Water Policy found that Pennsylvania has some of the highest water bills of any state.

But affordability studies have largely overlooked how rising costs affect communities of color specifically, according to a 2019 report by the Thurgood Marshall Institute at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. The report's authors noted, however, existing research indicates that Black communities may pay more for water services, or that those services may eat up a larger share of household incomes. Residents in Black communities might be more likely to experience shutoffs, the report also found.

Officials in Duquesne said that many residents had trouble keeping up with their bills before the pandemic.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission approved Pennsylvania American Water's request to raise its statewide rates on water and wastewater customers during the pandemic. Last year, sewer bills for the McKeesport system, which includes Duquesne, shot up 38% ($19.82) at a time when residents like Gaither were still unemployed due to COVID-19. In January 2022, another rate hike went into effect for Pennsylvania American Water customers. In Duquesne, that meant raising wastewater bills another 11%, according to Pennsylvania American Water spokesperson Gary Lobaugh.

Lobaugh said the company seeks to raise rates after investing vast sums of money into ailing systems. When the firm bought the McKeesport sewer system in 2017, it promised not to hike rates for at least a year. It then set to work replacing service lines in the area, to the tune of $42 million, according to Lobaugh. Other networks the company owns across the state also needed rehabbing, he said.

An abandoned house in McKeesport, PA. The financially troubled city sold its sewer system to a giant private company in 2017. Residents in Duquesne were affected too, because their wastewater network is part of the McKeesport system. Image by Catharine Smith. United States, 2021.

After a string of costly rehab jobs in other states, American Water Works is now seeking rate hikes in those places, according to a research note S&P's Doerr published this summer. The company has also requested yet another rate increase in Pennsylvania this year, and regulators are currently holding hearings on the proposal.

Duquesne's aging drinking water infrastructure likely needs a costly revamp-whether the system gets bought out by a private company or not. Longtime residents say they remember better-tasting water in their youth.

"Old systems tend to produce water that doesn't taste or look very good," said Myron Arnowitt, the Pennsylvania director of the Clean Water Action advocacy group. He noted that Duquesne's water department purchases drinking water from a municipal supplier in another county, about 20 miles away. "The farther away you are from the treatment plant, the more problems you're going to have," said Arnowitt.

In addition, the city's infrastructure was designed for a larger population. Half the residents have left since U.S. Steel closed its Duquesne mill in 1984. Abandoned homes covered in ivy, doors ajar, are visible all over town. Under the potholed streets, water meant for drinking sits around in pipes for long periods of time, waiting to be used. When it sits too long, the chemicals used to treat it can create harmful byproducts.

Duquesne's water has high levels of several potentially harmful toxins, according to research by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. Water systems in the surrounding region do too, possibly from fossil fuel extraction and other industries in the area, said Arnowitt. Though the water in Duquesne is technically in compliance with legal drinking standards, many residents don't use it for much besides bathing. One local said he drives to a natural spring in a neighboring town to collect water by hand. "I prefer to drink the spring water," he said.

Looking to the future

Academics who study water systems caution cities against rushing to sell their infrastructure when it's failing or when their public authority performs poorly.

Communities that form a cooperative water utility, for example, can retain control of their water system, democratically elect those in charge, and keep prices low by operating at cost and accessing cheaper forms of capital than a private company would, said Melissa Scanlan, director of the Center for Water Policy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Cooperatives are often overlooked as an option, she said.

"The debate is unnecessarily bipolar, going between either public or private and not thinking about this other model of cooperative governance," said Scanlan.

Duquesne's new mayor, Richard Adams, who oversaw the city's water department in his previous role as council member, did not respond when asked whether he'd considered forming a cooperative or selling the system.

Karl Russek, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania's Water Center who advised Duquesne officials on their water issues before the pandemic, said the city should spend big to fix the system and hire new experts to run it. Or it should consider merging its water operation with an adjacent municipality. Neither is likely to be popular, he said.

The same debate is raging across many cities. "There will be a reckoning in the next 10 years in the state of Pennsylvania, as these systems start to age out of their viability," Russek said.

Pennsylvania American Water's McKeesport office. The city of Duquesne is part of a sewer network that services both towns. While Duquesne's drinking water is not yet managed by a private company, Pennsylvania American already controls the water systems for many nearby cities. Image by Catharine Smith. United States, 2021.

Mayor Adams said his city is planning to replace old pipes and equipment at pump stations, but he did not say when the projects would take place or how they'd be funded, and he did not state exactly how much of the city's system would be affected.

Russek said cities that invest heavily in their water systems may need to hike rates to cover those costs.

"This is infrastructure that was funded largely by grants in the '70s and '80s," he said, adding, "cities are trying to figure out how to catch up from 30 years of deferred maintenance."

The Biden administration's infrastructure package could provide help. The measure allocated tens of billions of dollars for water and wastewater systems. It also purportedly set aside a portion for economically disadvantaged communities. Last summer, American Water Work's then-CEO Walter Lynch said the infrastructure deal won't thwart the company's expansion plans. The measure is merely a "drop in the bucket compared to the overall spending that's necessary," Lynch said during an earnings call.

Fawn Walker-Montgomery, 42, served on the McKeesport town council that approved the sewer sale in 2017. She voted for the deal because the city needed the money at the time, she said. But privatization didn't solve their problems. "We're still in desperate need," she said. If she could do it over, she'd push Pennsylvania American Water to help the community more, she added.

Walker-Montgomery now runs the nonprofit that paid to reconnect Kim Gaither's water last year.

Pennsylvania American Water, for its part, offers payment plans and grants for low-income residents. Multiple Duquesne residents said people in town simply don't know these programs exist.

When Mayor Adams took office, he told a local news blog he planned to pursue delinquent water bills in Duquesne. In an email, he explained that the city issues a warning notice prior to shutoffs and encourages residents to set up a payment plan.

Gaither remembers receiving delinquency notices from the city. But when she called the phone number listed, they did not discuss a payment plan, she recalled. She kept waiting-for the pandemic to end, for her job to come back.

In January 2022, the state announced a new grant program to help low-income residents avoid water and wastewater service shutoffs, in response to pandemic hardship. Early in February, Gaither received a grant to help pay her utility bills. "It's a blessing," she said.

In the spring, with hopes that the worst of the pandemic was over, she decided to return to work.

Though she said she was optimistic about her life getting back on track, she could soon be struggling with her utilities once again. If Pennsylvania American Water secures another rate increase, her sewer bill may rise for a third time since the pandemic started. And she might see higher water bills whether the city of Duquesne fixes its pipes on its own or sells its water system to a private company.

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Amid Water Crisis, Majority-Black Town Faces Higher Utility Bills

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Amid Water Crisis, Majority-Black Town Faces Higher Utility Bills. Kim Gaither doesn't drink the tap water in her home. Many of her neighbors don't either. She sometimes notices a rusty color and sulfuric smells when she runs the faucet, she says. "Every now and then...

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Newsela | Why the coronavirus looks different to Black America

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Why the coronavirus looks different to Black America

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Why the coronavirus looks different to Black America

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Academic Guides: Keyword Searching: Finding Articles on Your Topic: Select Keywords

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Academic Guides: Keyword Searching: Finding Articles on Your Topic: Select Keywords

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Academic Guides: Keyword Searching: Finding Articles on Your Topic: Select Keywords

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Subject and Course Guides: Research Process :: Step by Step: Identify Keywords

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Skip to Main Content

It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

Make a list of keywords relevant to your topic. Be sure to list similar, broader, narrower, and related terms . Keep the list by your side when you start your research and continue to add to it as you come across useful terms.

Identifying Keywords

Before searching for information, you need to identify keywords related to your topic. The keywords you use have an impact on the results of your research.

If the keywords you choose do not give you the results you need, try the others on your list or use the search strategies listed under Step 2.
Keywords and phrases can easily be found by scanning . . .

your initial research questions

encyclopedia and other articles used when conducting background research

bibliographies found at the end of books and articles

If you are still struggling, try these suggestions:

Use a thesaurus to identify synonyms

Find pictures related to your topic, then describe the picture

Brainstorm keywords with a librarian, your instructor, or a friend

Combining Keywords

When researching, we are like detectives trying to combine the right terms in the right place to find the information we need. This information will help you combine search terms to find relevant sources.

Broad Search

Search for information using the single most important term related to your topic. Use this type of search when looking for basic background information.

Specific Search

Search for information by combining key concepts using the words you have brainstormed. Each concept/word should be separated by the word "AND". Use this kind of search when looking for specific evidence related to your claim or thesis.

Getting Too Many Irrelevant Results?

Add more search terms.

Getting Too Few Relevant Results?

Change or remove some search terms.

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Subject and Course Guides: Research Process :: Step by Step: Identify Keywords

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Skip to Main Content It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. Make a list of keywords relevant to your topic.

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LibGuides: Research Skills Tutorial: 1.2 Searching with Keywords

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Skip to main content

It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

What are Keywords?

Keywords are words or short phrases that represent the main ideas in your research topic or question.

In Google, you can search using full sentences. Library databases are not as smart as Google and do not understand full sentences, spelling mistakes or conversational language.

Instead, you have to consider the words that authors are using the write about a topic.

Test Your Knowledge!

Which search will get you better results in the library's databases on the topic of racial profiling in America?

Causes and effects of racial profiling in America: 40 votes (19.9%)

"Racial Profiling" AND America: 141 votes (70.15%)

racial profiling OR America: 20 votes (9.95%)

Brainstorming Keywords

Brainstorming Keywords

To come up with keywords, identify the most important words in your research question or topic.

Does racial profiling against black men in America play a role in increasing poverty within black communities?

In the research question above, the most important keywords are: "racial profiling," "America, "poverty" and "black communities."

You could start searching the library's databases with just these keywords, but you may need to expand your search by brainstorming related words for each keyword. These could be:

Narrow words

Broader words

Ideas that are related to your topic

Synonyms (words that mean the same thing)

Take a look at the table below to see what other words we could use for 2 of our keywords.

Keyword 1: Racial profiling

Keyword 2: America

Broader: Racism

Synonym: USA, United States

Broader: Racial discrimination

Broader: North America

Synonym: Ethnic profiling

Narrower: New York

As you search for sources using the keywords, you will identify new keywords from abstracts, subject terms and titles. You can revise your searches with new keywords and continue the process until you find relevant sources.

Searching with Keywords

Combining Your Keywords

Many of the library's databases allow you to combine keywords using AND and OR.

Using AND to combine keywords will retrieve articles that include both of the terms, while using OR will retrieve articles that include either of the terms.

Look at the example below, which demonstrates how you could combine keywords in Academic Search Complete.

Searching with Synonyms

Synonyms are great to use when searching in databases, such as Academic Search Complete, because databases only bring back results which contain the exact words you typed in. If you don't include synonyms you could miss out on some relevant sources.

Synonyms can be combined using OR, as in the example below:

Confused? Watch the video below by UBC Libraries to learn how to use keywords in a library database. The same search strategies will work in the library's main search.

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LibGuides: Research Skills Tutorial: 1.2 Searching with Keywords

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Skip to main content It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

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2/24 Episode

https://www.gpb.org/radio/programs/political-rewind

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‘So unreal’: New York sisters named valedictorian and salutatorian, going to Yale

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“We’ve been working for this since ninth grade and we dreamed of this moment ... it just feels so unreal,” said Victoria Guerrier.

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COMPASS Developing Strong Research Questions

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How did the world's largest Confederate monument end up outside of Atlanta? What should be done, if anything, with it? With these questions in mind, Atlanta History Center explores the controversial history through online resources and an upcoming documentary.

Stone Mountain-the world's largest exposed granite outcrop-is a natural wonder turned Confederate monument. By Georgia state law, the entire park is designated as a memorial to the Confederacy. The effort to create a Confederate monument on Stone Mountain began in the 1910s. Yet, the monument was only completed in 1972. Spanning multiple efforts and more than 50 years, the carving's history is full of twists and turns.

The original idea for a carving on the side of Stone Mountain was the idea of Helen Plane, a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and a Confederate widow, who advocated for a memorial featuring Robert E. Lee on the side of the granite mountain. She expressed admiration for the Ku Klux Klan after viewing the infamous film The Birth of a Nation and even mused that a formation of Klan members might be included in the carving along with the Confederate war heroes.

The Klan itself played a large role in this first effort to create the Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain. Inspired by The Birth of a Nation, Alabama native William J. Simmons held a ceremony atop Stone Mountain in 1915 to announce the re-founding of the Ku Klux Klan. The Venable family owned the mountain at the time and granted the Klan easements to use the mountain for its rituals.

Shortly thereafter, the newly-formed Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Association (SMCMA) organized an effort to carve a Confederate monument on the side of the mountain and realize Plane's vision. Initially, the association hired carver Gutzon Borglum, who would go on to carve Mount Rushmore, but relations between Borglum and the association soured, partly due to intra-Klan disputes about new leadership that resulted in members of the SMCMA and Borglum being on opposite sides. After firing Borglum, the SMCMA blasted his work off the mountain. The association then hired American sculptor Augustus Lukeman, who managed to carve Robert E. Lee's head and part of Lee's torso into the mountain before funds ran out and the Great Depression set in, stalling the project.

At the time, the United Daughters of the Confederacy was a highly influential organization, and played a key role in reshaping popular memory of the Civil War. The Civil War is one of the most consequential events in American history. It began as an effort by Southern states to secede from the United States and establish a new slaveholding republic. For the Northern states, a fight to keep the United States intact eventually transformed into a referendum on the morality of enslaved labor.

After the war, former Confederates sought to rationalize their devastating loss-and in that process, developed Lost Cause ideology. This set of beliefs posit that the war was fought over anything but slavery, and instead places emphasis on state's rights and tariffs as the supposed causes of the conflict, and the overwhelming military power of the Union army as the primary rationale for defeat. The United Daughters of the Confederacy eagerly advanced this view of the Civil War, choosing favorable history textbooks for schools, hosting Confederate memorial day ceremonies, and building scores of monuments across the South (and in some cases, the North.)

Though the beginnings of the monument came during the heyday of The Lost Cause in the 1910s and 1920s, it was not completed until after a campaign promise from gubernatorial candidate and segregationist Marvin Griffin restarted the effort in the 1950s. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education overturned the legal basis for segregation in public schools. Fifty-seven days later, Griffin pointed to the mountain at a campaign rally and promised to finish the carving as a salute to those who fought for the South's "way of life," a "polite" way of saying preserving segregation.
With the election of Marvin Griffin, Georgia's state and local governments joined the "Massive Resistance" political movement, trying to deny Black Georgians the right to vote, fighting school integration, and doing their best to maintain the racial status quo of white supremacy. Griffin and state legislators changed the Georgia state flag in 1956 to add the Confederate battle flag design and purchased Stone Mountain in 1958 to build a Confederate memorial, fulfilling his campaign promise.

In the 1960s, as Black people and allies organized during the Civil Rights Movement, the carving was slowly completed. Martin Luther King Jr. had just been awarded his Nobel Peace Prize as workers finally finished carving "Stonewall" Jackson's face in 1964. As Alabama state troopers beat future congressman John Lewis and his fellow protestors in Selma, Alabama, workers put the finishing touches on Jackson's torso. In 1970, the carving was officially unveiled. Vice President Spiro Agnew spoke at the dedication-a snub to many white Southerners who felt that President Richard Nixon himself should have been there. Details were added to the carving until 1972.

The continued presence of the carving stands in stark contrast to the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the State of Georgia flag in 2001.

Pieces of legislation that made both possible were passed during Marvin Griffin's four-year administration. Yet, more than two decades later the Stone Mountain carving remains effectively rededicated each day by state law as a Confederate memorial. In the years since, these laws have been reaffirmed and even strengthened. O.C.G.A. § 12-3-192.1 establishes the Stone Mountain Memorial Association as one to "maintain an appropriate and suitable memorial for the Confederacy," while the more recent § 50-3-1 states: "the memorial to the heroes of the Confederate States of America graven upon the face of Stone Mountain shall never be altered, removed, concealed, or obscured in any fashion and shall be preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause."

The history of the Stone Mountain memorial is one that is often unknown or misunderstood-understanding the origins and intention of the carving, as well as its meaning to our lives today, might be one way to have a constructive conversation about the future of the carving and the designation of Stone Mountain Park as a Confederate memorial.

Atlanta History Center explores the puzzle of the Stone Mountain carving, its history, and what's at stake for our future in online resources under the Confederate Monument Interpretation Guide and in the documentary Stone Mountain, coming soon.

For a more detailed history and sources on the Stone Mountain carving, please read Atlanta History Center's "A Condensed History of the Stone Mountain Carving".

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Stone Mountain: Carving Fact from Fiction | Atlanta History Center

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How did the world's largest Confederate monument end up outside of Atlanta? What should be done, if anything, with it? With these questions in mind, Atlanta History Center explores the controversial history through online resources and an upcoming documentary. Stone Mountain-the world's largest exposed granite outcrop-is a natural wonder turned Confederate monument.

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https://www.pewresearch.org/

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A nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.

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Stalking case involving Black ranchers in El Paso County

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Stalking case involving Black ranchers in El Paso County

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Lack of clarity regarding where each family's property ends has been a major point of contention in the dispute between the Mallerys and the Clarks.

But Courtney and Nicole Mallery were both arrested Monday morning on warrants stemming from stalking charges filed against them by neighbors. Nicole Mallery was released Monday, and Courtney Mallery was released Tuesday night with help from the Rocky Mountain NAACP after El Paso County Judge Deborah Pearson bumped his bond up to $6,000 in court Tuesday afternoon.

Here's what we learned from a criminal affidavit against the Mallerys

According to a criminal affidavit, Courtney Mallery, 41, was charged with felony stalking, misdemeanor tampering with a utility meter, and a petty charge of theft under $50 on Dec. 9. His wife, Nicole, had also been charged with felony stalking last year.

After consulting with the local District Attorney's Office, El Paso County Sheriff's Sgt. Emery "Ray" Gerhart filed a sworn affidavit charging Courtney Mallery. In it, he lists complaints from Teresa Clark, who said the Mallerys have harassed her repeatedly.

In an emailed statement sent to Colorado Public Radio on Friday, Teresa Clark said she's in fear for her life, her animals, her house and her friends. She said she lives with her 82-year-old mother in Yoder, who she is afraid for too.

"I'm disabled from brain surgery, I have had a stroke," Clark said in the note. "I have been victimized for the last two years."

In the affidavit, Gerhart said Clark had been in contact with him about being harassed by the Mallerys since March 2022.

In one incident, Clark showed Gerhart a video she took of her truck with a window busted out and tire tracks from the scene leading to the Mallerys' property.

Other pictures and video Clark gave to police, according to Gerhart, allegedly showed multiple cameras on the Mallery property that pointed toward her house. The Mallery's home and Clark's home are about a mile apart, separated by an easement. According to the affidavit, the county does not recognize the easement as a road. Gerhart stated the easement is the main source of egress for Clark and her family.

Clark gathers mail and places her trash on the easement as well, the affidavit states. Clark also showed police pictures and video of the Mallerys stopping their vehicle in the easement near Clark's gate, the complaint states.

Nicole Mallery is seen in other videos near the easement with her hands in the air saying, "Hands up don't shoot," Gerhart said in the affidavit. Courtney Mallery is also seen shortly after walking by Clark's property with his hands in the air, the complaint states. Nicole Mallery is seen in the video using a loudspeaker, mentioning things that Clark should "pack for heaven," the affidavit states.

Other times, the Mallerys are seen driving past her property or up to the easement sometimes as Clark gets ready to leave for work and when she returns, Gerhart said in the affidavit.

As recent as December, police said Courtney Mallery was seen crossing his fence line and taking Clark's trash can, the affidavit states. Gerhart in the affidavit said he finds it highly unusual that the Mallerys put themselves in close proximity to Clark.

"This is compounded by the fact that both Mallerys have obtained temporary protection orders against Ms. Clark," Gerhart writes in the affidavit.

"Having lived in a rural portion of El Paso County for 20 years and investigating criminal activity solely in the rural portions of eastern El Paso county for seven years, I find this activity highly unusual and outright disturbing."

Gerhart said all of these incidents were documented by Clark in a 19-page "stalking log" that she maintains against the Mallerys. He said last August, they attempted to set up a meeting and resolve the issue with the Mallerys by contacting Nicole Mallery's attorney, but they were unable to arrange a meeting.

It is unclear at the moment why the sheriff's office didn't assign someone else to investigate the claims, because the Mallerys have also complained about Gerhart, claiming he was complicit in intimidating them and trying to force them off of their land.

Gerhart stated in the affidavit that he was the subject of four of the Mallerys' complaints against El Paso County Sheriff deputies in the last two years - all of which were dismissed. In total, Gerhart said the Mallerys filed more than 15 internal affairs complaints against deputies.

El Paso County Sheriff's Office executes search warrant at the Mallerys' ranch

In the affidavit, Gerhart said he obtained a warrant on Nov. 22 to search the Mallerys' property, and the next day he visited their ranch and took three surveillance cameras and three motion sensors that were directed at Clark's home.

Gerhart said Courtney Mallery met him while he was executing the warrant, and he explained that the cameras were being taken as part of the ongoing stalking investigation.

While at the Mallerys' home, Gerhart said he saw "unusual" wiring coming from one of the nearby transformers on a power pole, the affidavit states.

He had already received photos and video from Clark showing Courtney and Nicole Mallery working with someone else to access the power transformer, the affidavit states. Gerhart then called the South East Power Company Association and told them about the potential power tampering.

An inspector arrived soon after and determined the power company did not conduct the "unusual" wiring, and disconnected the power supply from the transformer. The company later placed a lock on the box, according to a complaint filed against the company by Teresa Clark, which has since been dismissed.

NAACP investigating, MLK Commission supports the Mallerys

Vern Howard, chairman of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission, a private group that organizes MLK events nationally and also supports victims of social injustice, spoke on behalf of the Mallerys Thursday and said they are emotionally distraught and frustrated with a justice system that "intentionally refuses to assist them."

The Rocky Mountain NAACP is currently investigating the Mallerys' case and said their first priority is to ensure the Mallerys are safe, and that they get an attorney. A realtor's association is looking into land deeds to determine where the property line is truly located between the Mallery and Clark homes, Howard said.

He added that the Mallerys believe they were targeted by neighbors and others in the area a few years ago after purchasing the property, which was abandoned prior to their arrival. Howard said the Mallerys being Black didn't help.

"El Paso County has a strong history of white supremacy and the Klan in Colorado. It's where the movie BlacKkKlansman took place," Howard said. He referenced the movie about Ron Stallworth - the first Black police officer to work at the Colorado Springs Police Department - who in 1978 successfully infiltrated the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs to unravel the organization.

"The Mallerys' dogs were poisoned with antifreeze, their goats have been butchered and other livestock," Howard said Thursday. "The Mallerys started filing police reports constantly to get something done, but the El Paso sheriff refused to respond and take their calls for help seriously. The sheriff's office told them if they continued to make these allegations in calling the police, then they would be arrested."

The sheriff's office denied the allegations of partiality and said it has investigated, but the only crimes they could find were committed by the Mallerys themselves. They reported responding to 170 calls for service and 911 calls, and 19 complaints from the Mallerys and their neighbors in the last couple of years.

Colorado Public Radio News has a records request pending to review these documents.

Howard said the Mallerys also believe Courtney Mallery was held illegally in jail on Monday, giving the Clarks time to file another restraining order. Teresa Clark filed a restraining order against Courtney Mallery in December, which has since been mandated by the courts. Judge Pearson ordered Courtney Mallery to have no contact with Teresa or Bonnie Clark in court on Tuesday.

Another complaint was filed by Teresa Clark on Tuesday morning against Courtney Mallery, the day of his hearing. That same morning, Clark also filed a complaint against a man she believes is working for the Mallerys and poisoned her livestock, court records show.

"The sheriff's office refused to do anything when the Mallerys came to them for help when they feared for their lives," Howard said. He said the Mallerys have suffered a loss of more than $200,000 in damages to their livestock and property.

Courtney Mallery's next court date is scheduled for Feb. 14.Nicole Mallery's next hearing is Feb. 16.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story misstated the amount in damages to livestock and property the Mallerys say they have sustained.

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What we know about the stalking case involving Black ranchers in El Paso County

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Lack of clarity regarding where each family's property ends has been a major point of contention in the dispute between the Mallerys and the Clarks. But Courtney and Nicole Mallery were both arrested Monday morning on warrants stemming from stalking charges filed against them by neighbors.

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Submit in Canvas: Annotated Bibliography

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Submit in Canvas: Annotated Bibliography

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Collections by Follett is a new, collaborative way for educators to collect and share resources from anywhere, at any time, and with anyone.

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Share to Google Classroom

An in-text citation is a reference to a source that is found within the text of a paper ( Handbook 227). This tells a reader that an idea, quote, or paraphrase originated from a source. MLA in-text citations usually include the last name of the author and the location of cited information.

This guide focuses on how to create MLA in-text citations, such as citations in prose and parenthetical citations in the current MLA style, which is in its 9th edition. This style was created by the Modern Language Association. This guide reviews MLA guidelines but is not related directly to the association.

Table of Contents

Why are in-text citations important?

In-text citations

Give full credit to sources that are quoted and paraphrased in a work/paper.

Help the writer avoid plagiarism.

Are a signal that the information came from another source.

Tell the reader where the information came from.

In-text citation vs. in-prose vs. parenthetical

An in-text citation is a general citation of where presented information came from. In MLA, an in-text citation can be displayed in two different ways:

1. In the prose

2. As a parenthetical citation

While the two ways are similar, there are slight differences. However, for both ways, you'll need to know how to format page numbers in MLA.

Citation in prose

An MLA citation in prose is when the author's name is used in the text of the sentence. At the end of the sentence, in parentheses, is the page number where the information was found.

Here is an example

When it comes to technology, King states that we "need to be comfortable enough with technology tools and services that we can help point our patrons in the right direction, even if we aren't intimately familiar with how the device works" (11).

This MLA citation in prose includes King's name in the sentence itself, and this specific line of text was taken from page 11 of the journal it was found in.

Parenthetical citation

An MLA parenthetical citation is created when the author's name is NOT in the sentence. Instead, the author's name is in parentheses after the sentence, along with the page number.

Here is an MLA parenthetical citation example

When it comes to technology, we "need to be comfortable enough with technology tools and services that we can help point our patrons in the right direction, even if we aren't intimately familiar with how the device works" (King 11).

In the above example, King's name is not included in the sentence itself, so his name is in parentheses after the sentence, with 11 for the page number. The 11 indicates that the quote is found on page 11 in the journal.

Full reference

For every source that is cited using an in-text citation, there is a corresponding full reference. This allows readers to track down the original source.

At the end of the assignment, on the MLA works cited page, is the full reference. The full reference includes the full name of the author, the title of the article, the title of the journal, the volume and issue number, the date the journal was published, and the URL where the article was found.

Here is the full reference for King's quote

King, David Lee. "Why Stay on Top of Technology Trends?" Library Technology Reports, vol. 54, no. 2, Feb.-Mar. 2018, ezproxy.nypl.org/login?url=//search-proquest-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/docview/2008817033?accountid=35635.

Readers can locate the article online via the information included above.

Citation overview

The next section of this guide focuses on how to structure an MLA in-text citation and reference in parentheses in various situations.

A narrative APA in-text citation and APA parenthetical citation are somewhat similar but have some minor differences. Check out our helpful guides, and others, on EasyBib.com!

Wondering how to handle these types of references in other styles? Check out our page on APA format, or choose from more styles.

Parenthetical Citation Reference Chart

Author/Sources

In-text citation

Structure & Explanation

(Title Location)

Use the title. Use an abbreviated version if it's long. Format the title like you do in the reference.

"Quotation marks" = Work that's part of a bigger source (e.g., book chapter, journal article, blog post, etc.)

Italics = Book, play, entire website, etc.

One author

(Epstein 161)

(Author's last name Location)

One author, 2 sources
(Austen Emma and Mansfield Park)

(Last name 1st Source's title and 2nd Source's title)

Two authors, 1 source
(Eriksson and Sagen 23)

From one source - list both authors separated by and, followed by the page number.

(Leung et al. 58)

Use et al. to indicate that there are 3 or more authors.

Corporate authors
(The British Museum)

(United States, Dept. of Education 82)

List the corporation or organization's name. Use abbreviations as appropriate. If several names are given, list all the names and separate them by a comma.

(Castillo 74)

Use the editor's name instead of the author's name.

Different sources, Same in-text citation
(Sarreal 11; DeArce 65)

Cite both authors/locations individually separated by a semicolon.

Sources with Two Authors

There are many books, journal articles, magazine articles, reports, and other source types written or created by two authors.

When a source has two authors, place both authors' last names in the body of your work ( Handbook 232). The last names do not need to be listed in alphabetical order. Instead, follow the same order as shown on the source.

In an MLA in-text citation, separate the two last names with the word "and." After both authors' names, add a space and the page number where the original quote or information is found on.

Here is an example of an MLA citation in prose for a book with two authors

Gaiman and Pratchett further elaborate by sharing their creepy reminder that "just because it's a mild night doesn't mean that dark forces aren't abroad. They're abroad all of the time. They're everywhere" (15).

Here is an example of an MLA parenthetical citation for a book with two authors

Don't forget that "just because it's a mild night doesn't mean that dark forces aren't abroad. They're abroad all of the time. They're everywhere" (Gaiman and Pratchett 15).

If you're still confused, check out EasyBib.com's MLA in-text citation generator, which allows you to create MLA in-text citations and other types of references in just a few clicks!

If it's an APA book citation you're looking to create, we have a helpful guide on EasyBib.com. While you're at it, check out our APA journal guide!

Sources With Three or More Authors

There are a number of sources written or created by three or more authors. Many research studies and reports, scholarly journal articles, and government publications are developed by three or more individuals.

If you included the last names of all individuals in your MLA in-text citations or in parentheses, it would be too distracting to the reader. It may also cause the reader to lose sight of the overall message of the paper or assignment. Instead of including all last names, only include the last name of the first individual shown on the source. Follow the first author's last name with the Latin phrase, "et al." This Latin phrase translates to "and others." Add the page number after et al.

Here's an example of an MLA parenthetical citation for multiple authors

"School library programs in Croatia and Hong Kong are mainly focused on two major educational tasks. One task is enhancing students' general literacy and developing reading habits, whereas the other task is developing students' information literacy and research abilities" (Tam et al. 299).

The example above only includes the first listed author's last name. All other authors are credited when "et al." is used. If the reader wants to see the other authors' full names, the reader can refer to the final references at the end of the assignment or to the full source.

The abbreviation et al. is used with references in parentheses, as well as in full references. To include the authors' names in prose, you can either write each name out individually or, you can type out the meaning of et al., which is "and others."

Here is an acceptable MLA citation in prose example for sources with more than three authors

School library programming in Croatia and Hong Kong is somewhat similar to programming in the United States. Tam, Choi, Tkalcevic, Dukic, and Zheng share that "school library programs in Croatia and Hong Kong are mainly focused on two major educational tasks. One task is enhancing students' general literacy and developing reading habits, whereas the other task is developing students' information literacy and research abilities" (299).

If your instructor's examples of how to do MLA in-text citations for three or more authors looks different than the example here, your instructor may be using an older edition of this style. To discover more about previous editions, learn more here.

Need some inspiration for your research project? Trying to figure out the perfect topic? Check out our Dr. Seuss, Marilyn Monroe, and Malcolm X topic guides!

Sources Without an Author

It may seem unlikely, but there are times when an author's name isn't included on a source. Many digital images, films and videos, encyclopedia articles, dictionary entries, web pages, and more do not have author names listed.

If the source you're attempting to cite does not have an author's name listed, the MLA in-text citation or parenthetical citation should display the title. If the title is rather long, it is acceptable to shorten it in the body of your assignment. If you choose to shorten the title, make sure the first word in the full citation is also the first word used in the citation in prose or parenthetical citation. This is done to allow the reader to easily locate the full citation that corresponds with the reference in the text.

If, in the Works Cited list, the full reference has the title within quotation marks, include those quotation marks in the in-text citation or reference in parentheses. If the title is written in italics in the full reference, use italics for the title in the in-text citation or reference in parentheses as well.

Parenthetical Citations MLA Examples

The example below is from a poem found online, titled "The Last Time." The poem's author is unknown.

"From the moment you hold your baby in your arms you will never be the same. You might long for the person you were before, when you had freedom and time and nothing in particular to worry about" ("The Last Time").

The example below is from the movie, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

"Perhaps it would have been different if there hadn't been a war, but this was 1917, and people were exhausted by loss. Those that were allowed to stay manned the pits, mining the coal that would fuel the ships. Twenty-four hours a day they labored" ( Englishman).

Notice the shortened title in the above reference. This allows the reader to spend more time focusing on the content of your project, rather than the sources.

If you're looking for an MLA in-text citation website to help you with your references, check out EasyBib Plus on EasyBib.com! EasyBib Plus can help you determine how to do in-text citations MLA and many other types of references!

Corporate Authors

Numerous government publications, research reports, and brochures state the name of the organization as the author responsible for publishing it.

When the author is a corporate entity or organization, this information is included in the MLA citation in prose or parenthetical citation.

Example

"One project became the first to evaluate how e-prescribing standards work in certain long-term care settings and assessed the impact of e-prescribing on the workflow among prescribers, nurses, the pharmacies, and payers" (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2).

If the full name of the organization or governmental agency is long in length, it is acceptable to abbreviate some words, as long as they are considered common abbreviations. These abbreviations should only be in the references with parentheses. They should not be used in citations in prose.

Here is a list of words that can be abbreviated in parentheses:

Department = Dept.

Government = Govt.

Corporation = Corp.

Incorporated = Inc.

Company = Co.

United States = US

Example of a shortened corporate author name in an MLA parenthetical citation

"Based on our analysis of available data provided by selected states' departments of corrections, the most common crimes committed by inmates with serious mental illness varied from state to state" (US Govt. Accountability Office 14).

Here is how the same corporate author name would look in an MLA citation in prose

The United States Government Accountability Office states, "Based on our analysis of available data provided by selected states' departments of corrections, the most common crimes committed by inmates with serious mental illness varied from state to state" (14).

Remember, citations in prose should not have abbreviations; other types of references can.

Looking for more information on abbreviations? Check out our page on MLA format.

Edited Books and Anthologies

Edited books and anthologies often include chapters or sections, each written by an individual author or a small group of authors. These compilations are placed together by an editor or a group of editors. There are tons of edited books and anthologies available today, ranging from ones showcasing Black history facts and literature to those focusing on notable individuals such as scientists like Albert Eintein and politicians such as Winston Churchill.

If you're using information from an edited book or an anthology, include the chapter author's name in your MLA citation in prose or reference in parentheses. Do not use the name(s) of the editor(s). Remember, the purpose of these references is to provide the reader with some insight as to where the information originated. If, after reading your project, the reader would like more information on the sources used, the reader can use the information provided in the full reference, at the very end of the assignment. With that in mind, since the full reference begins with the author of the individual chapter or section, that same information is what should be included in any citations in prose or references in parentheses.

Here is an example of an MLA citation in prose for a book with an editor

Weinstein further states that "one implication of this widespread adaptation of anthropological methods to historical research was the eclipse of the longstanding concern with "change over time," and the emergence of a preference for synchronic, rather than diachronic, themes" (195).

Full reference at the end of the assignment

Weinstein, Barbara. "History Without a Cause? Grand Narratives, World History, and the Postcolonial Dilemma." Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology, edited by Pramod K. Nayar, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015, p. 196. Wiley, www.wiley.com/en-us/Postcolonial+Studies%3A+An+Anthology-p-9781118780985.

Once you're through with writing and citing, run your paper through our innovative plagiarism checker! It's the editor of your dreams and provides suggestions for improvement.

Sources Without Page Numbers and Online Sources

When a source has no page numbers, which is often the case with long web page articles, e-books, and numerous other source types, do not include any page number information in the body of the project. Do not estimate or invent your own page numbering system for the source. If there aren't any page numbers, omit this information from the MLA in-text citation. There may, however, be paragraph numbers included in some sources. If there are distinct and clear paragraph numbers directly on the source, replace the page number with this information. Make it clear to the reader that the source is organized by paragraphs by using "par." before the paragraph number, or use "pars." if the information is from more than one paragraph.

Here is an example of how to create an MLA parenthetical citation for a website

"She ran through the field with the wind blowing in her hair and a song through the breeze" (Jackson par. 5).

Here's an example of an MLA citation in prose for a website

In Brenner's meeting notes, he further shared his motivation to actively seek out and secure self help resources when he announced, "When we looked at statistical evidence, the most commonly checked out section of the library was self-help. This proves that patrons consistently seek out help for personal issues and wish to solve them with the help of the community's resources" (pars. 2-3).

Here's another MLA in-text citation example for a website

Holson writes about a new mindful app, which provides listeners with the soothing sound of not only Bob Ross' voice, but also the "soothing swish of his painter's brush on canvas."

In above example, the information normally found in the parentheses is omitted since there aren't any page, parentheses, or chapter numbers on the website article.

Looking for APA citation website examples? We have what you need on EasyBib.com!

Need an in-text or parenthetical citation MLA website? Check out EasyBib Plus on EasyBib.com! Also, check out MLA Citation Website, which explains how to create references for websites.

Citing the Same Source Multiple Times

It may seem redundant to constantly include an author's name in the body of a research project or paper. If you use an author's work in one section of your project, and the next piece of information included is by the same individual(s), then it is not necessary to share in-text, whether in prose or in parentheses, that both items are from the same author. It is acceptable to include the last name of the author in the first use, and in the second usage, only a page number needs to be included.

Here is an example of how to cite the same source multiple times

"One of the major tests is the Project for Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills. This measurement was developed over four years as a joint partnership between the Association of Research Libraries and Kent State University" (Tong and Moran 290). This exam is just one of many available to measure students' information literacy skills. It is fee-based, so it is not free, but the results can provide stakeholders, professors, curriculum developers, and even librarians and library service team members with an understanding of students' abilities and misconceptions.

It is not surprising to read the results, which stated that "upper-level undergraduate students generally lack information literacy skills as evidenced by the results on this specific iteration of the Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills test" (295).

The reader can assume that the information in the second quote is from the same article as the first quote. If, in between the two quotes, a different source is included, Tong and Moran's names would need to be added again in the last quote.

Here is the full reference at the end of the project:

Tong, Min, and Carrie Moran. "Are Transfer Students Lagging Behind in Information Literacy?" Reference Services Review, vol. 45, no. 2, 2017, pp. 286-297. ProQuest, ezproxy.nypl.org/login?url=//search-proquest-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/docview/1917280148?accountid=35635.

Citing Two or More Sources in the Same In-text Citation

According to section 6.30 of the Handbook, parenthetical citations containing multiple sources in a single parenthesis should be separated by semicolons.

(Granger 5; Tsun 77)

(Ruiz 212; Diego 149)

Citing Multiple Works by the Same Author in One In-text Citation

Just as you might want to cite two different sources at the same time, it can also be useful to cite different works by the same author all at once.

Section 6.30 of the Handbook specifies that "citations of different locations in a single source are separated by commas" (251).

(Maeda 59, 174-76, 24)

(Kauffman 7, 234, 299)

Furthermore, if you are citing multiple works by the same author, the titles should be joined by and if there are only two. Otherwise, use commas and and.

(Murakami, Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood)

(Murakami, Wild Sheep Chase, Norwegian Wood, and "With the Beatles")

Abbreviating Titles

When listing the titles, be aware that long titles in parenthetical citations can distract the reader and cause confusion. It will be necessary to shorten the titles appropriately for in-text citations. According to the Handbook, "shorten the title if it is longer than a noun phrase" (237). The abbreviated title should begin with the word by which the title is alphabetized.

Best practice is to give the first word the reference is listed by so the source is easily found in the works cited. Omit articles that start a title: a, an, the. When possible, use the first noun (and any adjectives before it). For more on titles and their abbreviations, head to section 6.10 of the Handbook.

Full title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Full title: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Abbreviated: Disreputable History

Religious Works and Scriptures

There are instances when religious works are italicized in the text of a project, and times when it is not necessary to italicize the title.

If you're referring to the general religious text, such as the Bible, Torah, or Qur'an, it is not necessary to italicize the name of the scripture in the body of the project. If you're referring to a specific edition of a religious text, then it is necessary to italicize it, both in text and in the full reference.

Here are some commonly used editions:

When including a reference, do not use page numbers from the scripture. Instead, use the designated chapter numbers and verse numbers.

MLA example of an in-text citation for a religious scripture

While, unacceptable in today's society, the Bible is riddled with individuals who have two, three, and sometimes four or more spouses. One example in the King James Bible, states that an individual "had two wives, the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children" (1 Sam. 1.2)

The only religious scripture that is allowed to be in the text of a project, but not in the Works Cited list, is the Qur'an. There is only one version of the Qur'an. It is acceptable to include the name of the Qur'an in the text, along with the specific chapter and verse numbers.

If you're attempting to create a reference for a religious work, but it's not considered a "classic" religious book, such as a biography about Mother Teresa, or a book about Muhammed Ali's conversion, then a reference in the text and also on the final page of the project is necessary.

If you're creating an APA bibliography, you do not need to create a full reference for classic religious works on an APA reference page.

For another MLA in-text citation website and for more on the Bible and other source types, click here.

Long or Block Quotes

Quotes longer than four lines are called, "block quotes." Block quotes are sometimes necessary when you're adding a lengthy piece of information into your project. If you'd like to add a large portion of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, a lengthy amount of text from a Mark Twain book, or multiple lines from Abraham Lincoln 's Gettysburg Address, a block quote is needed.

MLA block quotes are formatted differently than shorter quotes in the body of a project. Why? The unique formatting signals to the reader that they're about to read a lengthy quote.

Block quotes are called block quotes because they form their own block of text. They are set apart from the body of a project with different spacing and margins.

Begin the block quote on a new line. The body of the full project should run along the one inch margin, but the block quote should be set in an inch and a half. The entire quote should be along the inch and a half margin.

If there aren't any quotation marks in the text itself, do not include any in the block quote. This is very different than standard reference rules. In most cases, quotation marks are added around quoted material. For block quotes, since the reader can see that the quoted material sits in its own block, it is not necessary to place quotation marks around it.

Here is an MLA citation in prose example of a block quote

Despite Bruchac's consistent difficult situations at home, basketball kept his mind busy and focused:

When I got off the late bus that afternoon, my grandparents weren't home. The store was locked and there was a note from Grama on the house door. Doc Magovern had come to the house because Grampa was "having trouble with his blood." Now they were off to the hospital and I "wasn't to worry." This had happened before. Grampa had pernicious anemia and sometimes was very sick. So, naturally, it worried the pants off me. I actually thought about taking my bike down the dreaded 9N the three miles to the Saratoga Hospital. Instead, I did as I knew they wanted. I opened the store and waited for customers. None came, though, and my eye was caught by the basketball stowed away as usual behind the door. I had to do something to take my mind off what was happening to Grampa. I took out the ball and went around the side. (13)

Notice the use of the colon prior to the start of the block quote. Do not use a colon if the block quote is part of the sentence above it.

Here is an example of the same block quote, without the use of the colon:

Despite Bruchac's consistent difficult situations at home, it was clear that basketball kept his mind busy and focused when he states

When I get off the late bus that afternoon, my grandparents weren't home...

If two or more paragraphs are included in your block quote, start each paragraph on a new line.

Looking for additional helpful websites? Need another MLA in-text citation website? Check out the style in the news. We also have other handy articles, guides, and posts to help you with your research needs. Here's one on how to write an MLA annotated bibliography.

Visit our EasyBib Twitter feed to discover more citing tips, fun grammar facts, and the latest product updates.

If you're looking for information on styling an APA citation, EasyBib.com has the guides you need!

Work Cited

Written and edited by Michele Kirschenbaum and Elise Barbeau. Michele Kirschenbaum is a school library media specialist and the in-house librarian at EasyBib.com. Elise Barbeau is the Citation Specialist at Chegg. She has worked in digital marketing, libraries, and publishing.
Published October 31, 2011. Updated July 5, 2021.

How do I cite multiple sources by the same author in MLA?

In MLA style, if multiple sources have the same author, the titles should be joined by and if there are only two. Otherwise, use commas and and.

In-text citation: (Austen Emma and Mansfield Park)

Structure: (Last name 1st Source's title and 2nd Source's title)

How do I cite a source with 3+ authors in text?

If a source has three or more authors, only include the last name of the first author followed by the Latin phrase, "et al." All other authors are accredited when "et al." is used.

In-text citation: (Leung et al. 58)

How do I cite corporate authors in text?

If the author is a corporate entity or organization, included the name of the corporate entity or organization in the in-text citation.

In-text citation: (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality 2)

Can I download my sources?

Yes, there's an option to download source citations as a Word Doc or a Google Doc. You may also copy citations from the EasyBib Citation Generator and paste them into your paper.

Can I create a manual citation?

Yes! Whether you'd like to learn how to construct citations on your own, our Autocite tool isn't able to gather the metadata you need, or anything in between, manual citations are always an option. Click here for directions on using creating manual citations.

What is the difference between an in-text citation and a works cited list entry in MLA?

An in-text citation is a shortened version of the source being referred to in the paper. As the name implies, it appears in the text of the paper. A works cited list entry, on the other hand, details the complete information of the source being cited and is listed within the works cited list at the end of the paper after the main text. The in-text citation is designed to direct the reader to the full works cited list entry. An example of an in-text citation and the corresponding works cited list entry for a journal article with one author is listed below:
In-text citation template and example:
Only the author surname (or the title of the work if there is no author) is used in in-text citations to direct the reader to the corresponding reference list entry. For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author for the first occurrence. In subsequent citations, use only the surname. In parenthetical citations, always use only the surname of the author. If you are directly quoting the source, the page number should also be included in the in-text citation.

Citation in prose:

First mention: Christopher Collins ....

Subsequent occurrences: Collins ....

Parenthetical:

....(Collins)

or

....(Collins 5)
Works cited list entry template and example:
The title of the article is in plain text and title case and is placed inside quotation marks. The title of the journal is set in italics.

Template:

Surname, F. "Title of the Article." Journal Title, vol. #, no. #, Publication Date, page range.

Example:

Collins, Christopher. "On Posthuman Materiality: Art-Making as Rhizomatic Rehearsal." Text and Performance Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 2, 2019, pp. 153-59.

Note that because the author's surname (Collins) was included in the in-text citation, the reader would then be able to easily locate the works cited list entry since the entry begins with the author's surname.

How do I create an in-text citation using MLA style?

An in-text citation is a short citation that is placed next to the text being cited. The basic element needed for an in-text citation is the author's name. The publication year is not required in in-text citations. Sometimes, page numbers or line numbers are also included, especially when text is quoted from the source being cited. In-text citations are mentioned in the text in two ways: as a citation in prose or a parenthetical citation.

Citation in prose

Citations in prose are incorporated into the text and act as a part of the sentence. Usually, citations in prose use the author's full name when cited the first time in the text. Thereafter, only the surname is used. Avoid including the middle initial even if it is present in the works-cited-list entry.

Parenthetical

Parenthetical citations add only the author's surname at the end of the sentence in parentheses.

Examples of in-text citations

Here are a few tips to create in-text citations for sources with various numbers and types of authors:
One author
Use both the first name and surname of the author if you are mentioning the author for the first time in the prose. In subsequent occurrences, use only the author's surname. Always use only the surname of the author in parenthetical citations.

Citation in prose:

First mention: Sheele John asserts .... (7).

Subsequent occurrences: John argues .... (7).

Parenthetical:

.... (John 7).
Two authors
Use the first name and surname of both authors if you are mentioning the work for the first time in the prose. In subsequent occurrences, use only the surnames of the two authors. Always use only the authors' surnames in parenthetical citations. Use "and" to separate the two authors in parenthetical citations.

Citation in prose:

First mention: Katie Longman and Clara Sullivan ....

Subsequent occurrences: Longman and Sullivan ....

Parenthetical:

.... ( Longman and Sullivan).
Three or more authors
For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the first author followed by "and others" or "and colleagues." For parenthetical citations, use only the surname of the first author followed by "et al."

Citation in prose:

Lincy Mathew and colleagues.... or Lincy Mathew and others ....

Parenthetical:

.... (Mathew et al.).
Corporate author
For citations in prose, treat the corporate author like you would treat the author's name. For parenthetical citations, shorten the organization name to the shortest noun phrase. For example, shorten the Modern Language Association of America to Modern Language Association.

Citation in prose:

The Literary Society of Malaysia....

Parenthetical:

.... (Literary Society).
No author
If there is no author for the source, use the source's title in place of the author's name for both citations in prose and parenthetical citations.

When you add such in-text citations, italicize the text of the title. If the source title is longer than a noun phrase, use a shortened version of the title. For example, shorten the title Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to Fantastic Beasts.

Citation in prose:

Knowing Body of Work explains .... (102).

Parenthetical:

....( Knowing Body 102).

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Read here to learn how to create in-text citations in MLA 8. Includes how to format in-text citations in MLA 8 and where in-text citations are located.

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Images of 'Black life, Black joy,' are immortalized in historic Charlottesville portraits

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Correction: We incorrectly named one of the people featured in a portrait and have updated it to reflect their correct identity, Lena Taylor Barbour.

In the middle of the University of Virginia sits a portrait of a man with piercing eyes and a serious countenance, and a story that has long survived its main character. That man is Henry Martin.

The existing historical records about Martin, who was born enslaved in 1826 at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, remember him in a patronizing way: as a faithful servant, emphasizing his work as a janitor and bell ringer at the University of Virginia.

When photos were taken of Martin, he was positioned near a bell or wearing an apron.

But when Martin commissioned two photographs for himself, he wanted to be portrayed as a president would. In one of the images now on display in the "Holsinger Studio Portrait Project: Visions of Progress" exhibit at the university, Martin's wearing a black suit, with no signs of the university or his job in the frame. He later gave copies of the image to white alums.

"It's a way of saying, 'This is who I am,'" said John Edwin Mason, chief curator of the exhibit. The photo shows "him with tremendous dignity and pride in the same way that you would show a wealthy, powerful white man."

"It is a remarkable act of self representation," he added.

In Charlottesville, more than 4,000 enslaved people, like Martin, were used to build Jefferson's University of Virginia. The vision for the university's design, done by Jefferson himself, was meant to enshrine the establishment of slavery by building high walls aimed at containing the enslaved in the heart of campus.

However, it was the vision that the Black community had of and for themselves, beyond the campus, that is the subject of the portrait exhibit.

Martin worked at UVA from around 1868 until his retirement in 1909. His face and likeness became one of the most recognizable parts of UVA daily life, and there's now a memorial to him included next to a bell like the one he rang.

But, at the Small Special Collections library, where the Holsinger Studio exhibit is housed, the larger-than-life portrait of Martin doesn't remind visitors of his contributions to the campus, but rather, the man Martin was. The portrait, commissioned by Martin himself, is displayed among, the demeaning and patronizing accounts of his life from white students and alumni who knew him, drawing a stark contrast.

"The university has not always been a good neighbor to the African American community," said Edwin Mason. "We've learned a lot about Charlottesville, its history and the hard side of history. We've learned about oppression. We have not learned about Black life, Black joy, Black family, Black churches, Black schools, Black politics, Black style. All of those things have been in the background. And through these portraits, we're bringing them into the foreground."

UVA and Charlottesville, much like the rest of the country, continue to grapple with a racist past and present. There were attempted lynchings of Black men in the city as late as 1917. The university did not fully integrate until the 1960s. That same decade, several historically Black neighborhoods in the city were razed in the name of more development. And a racist mob turned deadly in 2017 after protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.

We have not learned about Black life, Black joy, Black family, Black churches, Black schools, Black politics, Black style. All of those things have been in the background.

The portrait exhibit aims to show a side of the Black community, Mason said, that gives a more complete view of the people going through Jim Crow segregation in the South- and to do so from their vantage point.

"They are really stunning in the way that they show dignity, respectability, style, panache among African Americans who lived in central Virginia in the late 19th century, in the early 20th century," he said. "That's a time when there were lynchings in this area. And yet you could see none of that [in these portraits]."

All the portraits featured in this exhibit were taken at the white-owned Holsinger Studio several decades after the South lost the Civil War and during the so-called "The New Negro" movement that embodied Black self expression. The people photographed in these portraits were soldiers, seamstresses, and stable managers. Mason said there was no sign the Holsinger studio owner was "a racial liberal," but believes that more than 600 documented Black residents got their photo taken there because of the studio's ubiquity and desire to gain business.

"He wanted to make money. How do you make money? You treat your customers well. And whether your customers are African American or white, it doesn't matter. Their money is green," Mason said.

The university acquired more than 10,000 glass negatives from the studio that are very fragile, but wonderfully detailed, according to the UVA library special exhibition curator Holly Robertson. Robertson designed the exhibit so that many of the photos are lit from behind, as the slides are originally viewed in backlit archival scenarios.

"It was hard to pick just about 100 that are in this exhibition. But, this is a variety of all of the women, men, business owners, mothers, fathers, couples, grandparents that you see in this collection," she said.

That variety includes women like Lena Taylor Barbour, whose impeccable style is featured on the promotional materials for the exhibit. She was a seamstress and dressmaker, and Mason believes she made the extremely detailed eyelet lace dress she wore for her portrait. Bill Hurley, a stablehand and a "jack-of-all-trades" sits relaxed with his head held high, a cigarette in his mouth and a match held up in his hand. The photo, Mason said, is a great example of the studio collaborating with its subjects; the "flame" on the match would have had to be painted on the glass negative after, an early form of photo manipulation. The exhibit also features a man and his dog, several children and couples. Mason said the goal of the exhibit is also to show the context and history of the subjects of the images, rather than just the portraits themselves.

"I want to tell stories about history through this exhibition," he said. "I actually want people to also come and read, right, so that there's a little bit of work involved in coming to this exhibition because we tell stories in little chunks. It's really important to read the life stories of the people and to get a sense of the historical context of this."

Like the story of Martin, past the stereotypical and patronizing histories written about him by white students and alumni who knew only the UVA employee and not the man.

The exhibit is open now until June 2023.

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Images of 'Black life, Black joy,' are immortalized in historic Charlottesville portraits

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A portrait exhibit at the University of Virginia aims to show a side of the Black community that gives a more complete view of the people going through Jim Crow segregation in the South - and to do so from their vantage point.

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We can't fight climate change without Black voters | Greenbiz

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We can’t fight climate change without Black voters

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We can’t fight climate change without Black voters

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I have been personally concerned about how existing U.S. laws that were intended to support environmental protection and racial equality could be undone by the Supreme Court. The increasingly used " major questions doctrine" threatens to erode protections that have been baked into lawmaking books for decades, leaving the future landscape of policies impacting environmental and social issues hanging in uncertainty.

Up for debate are aspects of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court. This legislation has been a bedrock for equality since 1965. In addition to strengthening our democracy, I believe the Voting Rights Act also empowers us to achieve meaningful climate action.

Without strong voting protection laws and mechanisms, we can expect to see Black voter participation decline. Consequently, Black political interests - which are closely aligned with fighting climate change - will be represented less.

Consider a 2022 exit poll of midterm voters that found that outside of the economy, climate change has broken through as a top priority among Black voters. Climate change is equally as important to our community as crime, racism and abortion, the same survey discovered. Even research from Pew Research Center corroborates this narrative. This discovery is not surprising.

My understanding of the indelible connection between the necessity for Black voter protection and care for climate change didn't begin recently. It's been with me ever since I learned to read and write.

Dampening Black voter turnout thwarts our ability to use the fundamental tools of our democracy to develop the systemic, institutional change we'll need to build a more sustainable, equitable world.

When I was only 4, I wrote into my composition notebook on the very first page, "I'm a Democrat," with a capital D. My penmanship was loose and uneven, somewhere between stick-figure people and a sun drawn into the corner with squiggly rays. On the front cover was one of the "I voted" stickers I eagerly grabbed from Grandma Dorothy every time she took me with her to the polling booths. I'd squeeze in there behind the voting booth curtain pretending like I was voting too. "We weren't always able to do this," she once said.

Along my elementary school walls were larger than life murals of Black heroes such as Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall and Jackie Robinson. My nearly-all-Black classmates and I perambulated among those halls, dwarfed in their literal and metaphorical shadows. Their effigies evoked inspirational reminders that there was nothing wrong with wanting a better world for us and others. A world full of love, peace and justice was possible.

We deserved that world. We could even create that world.

I had a hero myself. Her name was Grandma Dorothy. When she was principal of Sneed Middle School, she was not only the first principal in the school's history but also the first Black woman to open a majority-white school anywhere in Florence County, South Carolina. That meant many of her students' white parents met their first Black principal, Mrs. Dorothy M. T. Ellerbe. She wasn't the first Black woman who could achieve this; instead, she was the first Black woman that white people allowed to achieve this, and she made sure I understood that.

Born in 1943 as the youngest of seven children, Grandma Dorothy grew up helping her siblings plant, grow and harvest tobacco because back in those days, her parents didn't have a TV in the bedroom and smoking tobacco was "good for you." In rural Florence County, mechanized farm equipment hadn't quite reached Savannah Grove Road, and having lots of kids toil the earth was the only livelihood most Black folks knew.

As Grandma Dorothy grew into adulthood, she had a different plan, however, and set her eyes on college. She swore she'd never bend down to pick tobacco ever again - the heat, the gnats and the back-breaking hours were far from ideal working conditions.

She never lost her connection with the land, though. Her award-winning garden became a floral haven where I played for much of my formative years through seventh grade. Songbirds coaxed me into gentle siestas, and with spring's slackening grip, bees and butterflies hummed delightfully together in the longer summer days. I watched her as she pruned the roses, how she touched their waxy leaves and seemed to breathe life into them. Sometimes I'd be right there assisting her, just like I was in the polling booths.

Grandma Dorothy exemplified the importance of maintaining a healthy relationship with nature, thereby encouraging me to be an environmental steward. Her lessons are what move me to do the work I do today in corporate sustainability. At the same time, she also exemplified how voting was a critical vehicle to effectuate the laws that are important to us. But just like Grandma Dorothy had taught, we weren't always able to do this.

I am now witnessing myself the erosion of the voting protections that we once guaranteed through the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder abolished the system of "federal preclearance," which required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to seek pre-approval before making any changes to their voting practices. Most recently, in 2021, the Court's Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee decision made it more difficult for voting rights plaintiffs to challenge racially discriminatory voting laws in court.

In a country without the protections of the Voting Rights Act, strict voter ID laws, restrictions on Sunday voting - such as those proposed last year in Georgia and Texas - and polling place consolidation have already been especially harmful for the turnout of racial and ethnic minorities.

As sustainability professionals, we must support collective action of both the grassroots and groundtops variety to increase voter participation in communities that have been marginalized, such as Black communities. Given that Black people, according to a Yale study, are more likely to be "Alarmed" or "Concerned" about global warming than those who identified as white, in fact, we can't fight climate change without Black voters.

Dampening Black voter turnout thwarts our ability to use the fundamental tools of our democracy to develop the systemic, institutional change we'll need to build a more sustainable, equitable world.
The views reflected in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization.

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We can't fight climate change without Black voters | Greenbiz

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I have been personally concerned about how existing U.S. laws that were intended to support environmental protection and racial equality could be undone by the Supreme Court. The increasingly used " major questions doctrine" threatens to erode protections that have been baked into lawmaking books for decades, leaving the future landscape of policies impacting environmental and social issues hanging in uncertainty.

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Article about greenspaces and hosuing affordability in the South Dekalb Community

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Canopy Atlanta partners with Atlantans to choose, report, and present journalism responding to community needs, helping residents tell stories about the issues that matter most to them.

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Canopy Atlanta partners with Atlantans to choose, report, and present journalism responding to community needs, helping residents tell stories about the issues that matter most to them.

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Political Rewind: State House set to pass 2024 budget; Protesters accuse police of harmful tactics

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3/9 Episode; 1286 seconds

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The panel

Alan Abramowitz, @AlanIAbramowitz, professor emeritus of political science, Emory University

Kevin Riley, @ajceditor, editor-in-chief, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Rick Dent, vice president, Matrix Communications

Tanya Washington, @AskProfW, professor of law, Georgia State University

The breakdown
1. The State House is set to approve a budget with increased funding for law enforcement.

The 2024 budget would add $4,000 to law enforcement officers' salaries and allow for a Georgia State Patrol office in Buckhead, a reaction to concerns over public safety.

The salary bump for law enforcement comes as a political win for Gov. Brian Kemp, who has vocally supported conservative positions on policing.

2. Opponents of the planned Atlanta police training center are accusing police of heavy-handed tactics.

Over the weekend, 23 activists were charged with domestic terrorism in an alleged connection with arson of construction equipment on the site.

The conflict has been an inflection point for Atlanta political institutions. The King Center is hosting events for protesters, but Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Kemp have vehemently supported building the training center.
The New Georgia Project, Stacey Abrams' organization, also supports The King Center's efforts.

3. Fox News' Tucker Carlson leads the narrative that January 6th was a peaceful protest.

Prominent Republicans negatively responded to Carlson's claim.
Mitch McConnell said, "It was a mistake, in my view, for Fox News to depict this in a way that's completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks."

This comes as Fox News' credibility has come under fire after findings in a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.

Friday on Political Rewind: A special interview with the University of Georgia's Dr. Charles Bullock.

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Political Rewind: State House set to pass 2024 budget; Protesters accuse police of harmful tactics

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Thursday on Political Rewind: The Georgia House is set to pass a 2024 budget that increases investment in law enforcement and public safety, including funds to address concerns in Buckhead. Meanwhile, opponents of the planned Atlanta police training center are accusing police of heavy-handed tactics.