Imperiled by city planners, ignored by Congress, Black people fight for air that won’t kill them
Daniel Chervoni in his garden in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, NY (Facebook, used with permission)
The Grio
By: Ray Marcano
Bad air kills Black people.
That’s what the federal government says. Black people, far more than their white counterparts, live not only in poorer and noisier conditions, but with higher levels of pollution, leading to a host of maladies and death. Worse, deliberate federal racist policies — a history of practices the United States acknowledges —go unchecked by Congress that allows the lethal circumstances.
These pollutants, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, lead to health problems that include heart and lung disease. And that’s not all. Researchers believe there’s a link between air pollution and type 2 diabetes — a disease that half of Black people stand a chance of developing.
Black people choking on filthy air know all of that. So do the officials who created the conditions. There’s research that shows it – yet, there’s still Africatown.
Historic Africatown, home to the last known slave ship to sail to America, sits along Mobile, Alabama’s African American Heritage Trail and has been named a world preservation site by the World Monuments Fund.
