Author: infomedia

“This Report Will Be Hard to Read:” Jefferson County Memorial Project Puts the Spotlight on Lynchings, and There’s More to Come.

Sam Prickett, February 27, 2019

Updated – Thirty people were lynched in Jefferson County between 1883 and 1940, victims of racial terror in the segregated, postwar South. Now, a new report will tells the story of each of those victims, with the goal of fostering dialogue about racial violence and its connection to present-day injustice.

The “Jefferson County’s 30 Residents” report, released Wednesday night, was compiled by the Jefferson County Memorial Project, a citizen-led cooperative working to spark conversation around the county’s history of racial violence.

The project was sparked by the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened in Montgomery in April with the stated goal of placing America face-to-face with its history of injustice.

JCMP organizers said that their report will place Jefferson County at the forefront of a national movement sparked by the EJI’s monument, making the county a model for others looking to create a dialogue and advocate for change. Read more.

Researching Birmingham’s Lynchings was Disturbing, Eye-Opening for College Students Who Took on the Project

How They Did It: College Students Were Trained in Research Techniques to Tell the Stories of Jefferson County’s Lynching Victims

Jefferson County’s 30 Victims

This map links to a live interactive map on the JCMP’s website.

County’s Major Air Polluters Concentrated in Low-Income, Minority Neighborhoods

Hank Black, August 16, 2018

BirminghamWatch Graphic: Clay Carey

The Oliver Robinson bribery trial, in which guilty verdicts were issued for officials of Drummond Coal Co. and its law firm, Balch & Bingham, revealed a gritty episode about avoiding environmental cleanup in North Birmingham. But there’s a bigger dirty picture.

The vast majority of Jefferson County’s 31 major sources of pollution – those emitting enough pollution to require a permit under Title V of the Clean Air Act – are located in low-income areas, a BirminghamWatch analysis found.

The findings show 71 percent of the major pollution sources are in areas with incomes below the median income for the county.

Only one primary source of pollution is in a neighborhood with a median household income greater than 110 percent of the county median.

Residents of the same low-income areas also often are largely African American. Research has shown that economically depressed populations can be more heavily affected by the negative health effects of air pollution.

Poor air does not equally strike everyone in the Birmingham area, raising issues of environmental justice. Read more.