Progress on Racial Injustices as a Counter to the White Backlash
Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just who do you think I am?
…the world is big and bright and round
And it’s full of folks like me
Who are black, yellow, beige, and brown …
I’m gon’ leave you with the backlash blues
You’re the one who’ll have the blues, not me
Just wait and see.
Nina Simone, “Backlash Blues” (1967)
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Bottom Line Upfront: BLUF
Backlash Blues, but Not Defeat: Despite Trump’s authoritarian drift and rising civic threats, national disapproval of his policies—on immigration, the economy, education, and Medicaid—signals crumbling public support for his claimed “mandate.”
Grassroots Victory in Cancer Alley: After decades of environmental racism, Black residents of St. John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana forced Denka (a Japanese fossil fuels company) to suspend toxic operations, proving that relentless local resistance can halt corporate pollution—even if only temporarily.
Reclaiming Tainted Land in Houston: The Houston Land Bank is transforming contaminated “brownfield” sites—often in Black and Latino neighborhoods—into green spaces and affordable housing, addressing environmental injustice without federal support.
Farming Justice in Dallas: Bonton Farms is tackling food deserts and reentry barriers through urban agriculture, financial reform, and legislative advocacy—demonstrating that food justice and decarceration can be intertwined, systemic, and state-supported.
Clean Energy Renaissance in Illinois: Through the CEJA, communities once gutted by industrial decline are being reimagined with workforce programs for the formerly incarcerated, linking racial equity with the climate economy of the future.
Tulsa’s Long-Delayed Racial Reckoning: A century after the Tulsa Massacre, its first Black mayor has proposed a $105 million reparative fund for housing, cultural restoration, and economic opportunity, marking a historic shift from erasure to investment in Black futures.
Hope Amid Hostility: While the second Trump term fuels racial retrenchment, these localized, people-powered advances show that justice is not only possible—it’s already happening. The fight continues, and progress persists.
Introduction
This week, I celebrated Trump’s decline in approval among registered voters. In the latest national Quinnipiac poll, 54% of registered voters disapprove of how he is handling the job of president, while only 38% approve. This marks the lowest approval rate he has experienced in his second term.
Registered voters voiced their discontent in various ways:
54% disapprove of the handling of immigration, and 56% disapprove of deportations.
56% disapprove of his handling of the economy, and 54% disapprove of his handling of universities.
In foreign affairs: 57% disapprove of the Russia-Ukraine war, and 57% disapprove of his strategies on trade.
On his so-called ‘big, beautiful bill” (which will dramatically increase the national debt, reward the wealthy, and cut services to those who most need them), only 27% approve
Only 10% support the House of Representatives’ proposal to reduce federal Medicaid funding.
Disapproval doesn’t halt all that the administration is currently doing and plans to do (far from it), but it indicates that the support for his agenda, which he considers a ‘mandate,’ is heading toward the septic tank.
He will continue to distract and redirect American attention away from the increasing collateral damage he has caused with his birthday military parade (er, or is it the 250th anniversary of the Army parade, I forget), the detention of elected officials, and his lobbing threats and false accusations against his political opponents, along with rising and visible civic opposition.
Speaking of which, I was proud on Saturday to join a “No Kings Day” protest in Annapolis, Maryland, one of 1,800 protests occurring across all 50 states, involving several million Americans. (See some pix below)
Continue to stand up and resist what this administration is doing all summer. We must limit his successes, overturn as many of his orders as possible, and make clear that there is no mandate for him to become America’s authoritarian leader.
On to the main focus of the newsletter!
I continue to track successes in racial equity and justice across America, both big and small, near and far from D.C., to remind myself (and all of us) that important and effective work to level the playing field and make America more equitable is ongoing.
1. After Years of Environmental Injustice, A Reprieve in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley
A multinational chemical manufacturing company based in Japan (Denka) suspended production at its plant in St. John the Baptist Parish (Louisiana) in May due to significant financial losses. Originally owned by DuPont, the plant has been polluting the air in St. John since 1968 with chloroprene, a highly toxic chemical classified by the EPA as a likely carcinogen, for which there is no safe level of exposure.
St. John is located 30 miles upriver from New Orleans and is approximately equidistant between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
For nine years, St. John residents have fought the company for the right to breathe clean air. “They organized, marched, petitioned, sued, and even traveled across the globe to confront the company poisoning the community with chloroprene … Now, they’ve won a long overdue reprieve.”[1]
This has been environmental racism for over 50 years, plain and simple.
While 24% of Louisianians outside of New Orleans are Black, 40% of those in Cancer Alley are Black, and nearly 60% of St. John the Baptist Parish residents are Black. This has been a deliberate form of environmental racism for decades.
Of note, even though the EPA began to positively respond to residents’ concerns in the first few years of the Biden administration, the Louisiana attorney general sued the EPA in 2023 over its civil rights administration, leading the EPA to prematurely close its investigation. The Tr*mp administration has subsequently dropped the enforcement case entirely and is now reconsidering “the 2024 air toxics standards the community fought for.”[2]
Additionally, it's important to note that Denka has not permanently closed the facility; it has merely suspended operations. The community will need to continue fighting to ensure it never reopens.
2. The Houston Land Bank is Cleaning Up Contaminated Sites to Provide New, Affordable Housing
Houston has long had sites and facilities linked to the city’s industrial era where numerous properties are classified as “brownfield” sites, which have been contaminated by pollution in the air, water, and soil. Similar to Louisiana, most of these sites were intentionally located in Black and Latino neighborhoods.
The Houston Land Bank (HLB) is actively reclaiming several brownfield sites for redevelopment into affordable housing. Two notable examples are:
A former 6-acre headquarters site that was previously owned by Yellow Cab. It took HLB 4 years to clean up the contamination on the site, which is now being developed into a mixed-use affordable housing community for both single- and multi-family residents. The community will include housing for families earning up to 120% of the area median income (AMI).
An abandoned trash incinerator site (referred to as Velasco), long neglected by the city, is currently undergoing cleanup through a complex and lengthy process, ultimately transforming it into green space that offers environmental and housing benefits.[3]
HLB works closely with governments, philanthropic organizations, and regulators to tackle challenges at sites like this, not only to clean them up (which is essential) but also to ensure that the benefits of redevelopment from those sites are equitably distributed.
Both of these stories are remarkable and a testament to grassroots advocacy and activism. Especially since Tr*mp’s EPA has canceled all federal environmental justice grants, the momentum toward making environmental injustices right will have to persist (and prevail) at the local, grassroots level.
3. Maryland Board of Public Works Approves $4.3 Million for Greenspace Equity Program Across Underserved Communities in 14 Counties
Maryland’s Greenspace Equity Program supports the creation, preservation, and improvement of public green spaces, enhancing public health and community livability in overburdened and underserved communities. It defines overburdened as places where pollution sources are at higher levels than normal, and underserved as places where income levels are lower than the median among other neighbors.
The program funded 22 projects for the current fiscal year for initiatives like “new trails, parks, urban farms, gathering spaces, community woodlands, and gardens. It looks to “close the gap in green space protection and access for communities that have often been left behind.”[4]
You can find more about this state-wide program here: Link.
In my book, It’s Never Been a Level Playing Field: Overcoming 8 Racial Myths to Even the Field, I write about actions that need to be taken at the local level (or as above, at the state level), to bring about greater racial equity when it comes to investments in green space, open space, and various forms.
4. An Urban Farm in Dallas Tackles Food Insecurity and Prison Recidivism, Inspiring a Statewide Legislative Act to Replicate Their Results
Over 50 million Americans reside in food deserts with limited or no access to fresh and healthy food. More than 20% of African Americans live in these food deserts, primarily due to a higher percentage of Blacks residing in high-poverty neighborhoods, which is more than double the percentage of Whites.
In any given year, over 10% of Americans face food insecurity, defined as a lack of reliable access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. This issue extends beyond food deserts and includes having limited household income, which can prevent families from affording enough food. Over the last five years, the percentage of food-insecure African Americans has varied between 22% and 28%. In that same period, the range for Whites has been between 7% and 10%.[5]
That’s why what’s happening at Bonton Farms in South Dallas is so crucial. Bonton is an urban, large-scale farm that produces food and creates jobs, especially for “those coming out of incarceration, addiction, and homelessness.”[6]
In order to build out the farm to scale, Bonton’s founders faced significant legal and zoning barriers to what and where it could plant and sell. Ultimately, they put forward and helped the state government to pass The Bonton Farms Act in 2021.
“The law allows court fines accrued before incarceration to be credited as time served, removing a bureaucratic roadblock that kept people from rebuilding their lives. It also introduced a ‘double time’ provision, ensuring that some fines could be reduced or fully served while incarcerated.”[7]
When its leaders discovered how many of its staff were being subjected to predatory lending for small loans (with interest rates as high as 380%), Bonton Farms negotiated with nine banks to provide affordable alternatives, with interest rates as low as 5% for their members.
There’s no good reason that initiatives like this can’t be activated in just about any state in the country. What is being done in Dallas is especially important in connecting two injustices (intentionally created food deserts and intentional lack of resources provided to returning citizens) and, in tandem, vying to make them right.
5. How the Clean Energy Industry in Illinois is Providing Education and Jobs for Forgotten Communities
Illinois, similar to many states in the “Rust Belt,” has experienced significant industrial decline over the past fifty years.
Now, through the state’s 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), a dozen deindustrialized towns and cities across the state are starting to benefit from clean energy funding that is encouraging new companies and developing workforce programs that create jobs in the expanding clean energy industry.
A great example of this is happening in Decatur, IL, where a clean energy workforce training program at Richland Community College feeds newly trained residents into the locally owned TCCI Manufacturing company, a maker of electric vehicle compressors. The training program takes place next to the manufacturing floor of the plant. The college and the company have partnered on this initiative through a preexisting program, EnRich, “that helps formerly incarcerated or otherwise disenfranchised people gain news skills and employment.”[8]
EnRich utilizes a trauma-informed approach in this training, incorporating wraparound services for trainees such as childcare, counseling to address PTSD, and assistance in navigating issues related to having a criminal record.
Training consists of an 8-week life skills component, a construction math class, and an eight-hour overview on electric vehicles, solar installation, HVAC, and home energy auditing. After completing this, participants select a track to follow that can lead not only to professional certifications but also to associate degrees. The state covers the costs of students’ training.
The first cohort graduated last fall.[9] Many of the trainees in the first and second cohorts are African American.
Once again, what we see in Illinois through its clean energy program is addressing two persistent challenges: revitalizing smaller urban communities left behind by U.S. manufacturing and the joblessness it caused, not only with investments in new types of manufacturing but also with investments in workforce training that helps workers and residents affected by the exodus of companies and jobs obtain the skills they need to enter these new clean energy industries.
6. Tulsa’s First Black Mayor Proposes $105M Fund to Heal Greenwood’s Wounds
Many people, myself included, only recently learned about the horrific White-on-Black massacre that took place in Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood in 1921. At that time, Greenwood was known as Black Wall Street, until this dreadful massacre (which claimed at least 300 lives) and the subsequent fire destroyed dozens of blocks, totaling 35 acres.
For decades, Greenwood residents have fought for reparations that could (nominally) compensate for the tremendous losses in life and property that occurred in 1921, but always to no avail.
Until now.
On June 1, 2025, Tulsa’s first-ever African American mayor unveiled a new “Road to Repair” initiative to address the systemic impacts of the massacre, 104 years later.
Mayor Monroe Nichols announced the establishment of the Greenwood Trust, which will allocate $24 million for housing and homeownership for Greenwood descendants, $60 million for cultural preservation as part of the revitalization efforts of the Kirkpatrick Heights-Greenwood Master Plan, and $21 million towards “the development of trust-owned land and acquisition of land for the benefit of Race Massacre survivors and descendants.”[10]
The Cultural Preservation Fund will focus on improving buildings and reducing blight in the district, in addition to helping implement parts of the master plan.
The $21 million Legacy Fund will also help establish a scholarship fund for descendants’ children to promote more effective educational pathways and success. It will further support economic development in Greenwood and North Tulsa by providing grants to small business owners and non-profit organizations.[11]
After over a century of frustration and pain, the descendants and the Greenwood District will finally receive significant investment and redress for their futures.
Progress Persists Despite the Far-right Backlash
As I lay out repeatedly in "It’s Never Been a Level Playing Field," America (and specifically, White America) has done far too little to create a more equal playing field since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts (1964, 1965, 1968). Consequently, much work remains to repair and address historical wrongs from the past century and a half.
What do I mean by ‘did far too little?’
By allowing conditions in Black ghettos to worsen throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s due to either poor policy or malign neglect, joblessness, crime, and drug addiction increased for African Americans left behind in those disinvested neighborhoods. During that time, successive presidents enacted “wars on drugs” and the accompanying “mass incarceration,” both of which further decimated these neighborhoods.
During those decades, we hardly addressed issues of residential or educational segregation. As a result, genuine access to economic and educational opportunities remained largely and cruelly lacking for too many African Americans.
Yet, despite insufficient progress, the racial equity and justice successes I’ve written about over the past few months (and in today’s post) that are occurring in numerous towns, cities, and counties across the U.S. continue to give me hope that progress will persist, despite the far-right backlash currently amplified by the 2nd Tr*mp Administration.
Footnotes
[1] Deena Tumeh and Adam Kron, “In Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, a Deserved Reprieve for St. John Residents After Years of Environmental Justice,” EarthJustice, May 27, 2025, https://earthjustice.org/experts/deena-tumeh/in-louisianas-cancer-alley-a-deserved-reprieve-for-st-john-residents-after-years-of-environmental-injustice.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Christa Stoneham, Perspectives in Place: Environmental Justice and Brownfield Redevelopment, a Call For Equitable Urban Transformation, The People’s Practice, Issue 7, February 2025, https://thepeoplespractice.org/issue07/.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Laura J. Hales, “Food insecurity in U.S. households varies across race and ethnicity,” Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 8, 2024, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=108925#:~:text=From%202016%20to%202021%2C%2011.1,most%20race%20and%20ethnicity%20categories..
[6] Iulia Lupse, “These Urban Farms Are Filling the Gaps the Government Ignores,” Next City, May 27, 2025, https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/these-urban-farms-are-filling-the-gaps-the-government-ignores.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Kari Lydersen, “From EVs to HVAC, clean energy means jobs in Central Illinois, Canary Media, May 19, 2025, https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-energy-jobs/illinois-decatur-workforce-training.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Deonna Anderson and Aysha Khan, “Tulsa’s $105 Million Reparations Plan,” Next City, June 6, 2025, https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/the-weekly-wrap-tulsa-105-million-reparations-plan.
[11] “The Greenwood Trust,” City of Tulsa, accessed June 11, 2025, https://cityoftulsa.org/mayor/road-to-repair/the-greenwood-trust/.