Virginia Martin

Report: Alabama Community Corrections Harms Low-Income Participants

WBHM A recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says Alabama’s community corrections program unfairly burdens low-income people and threatens public safety. Community corrections, operating in 51 of Alabama’s 67 counties, is overseen by the state Department of Corrections but run locally. It’s designed to be an alternative to prison. The report’s main criticism is that community corrections relies on fees as a primary revenue source. These include fees for drug testing, supervision or electronic monitoring. Read more.

Alabama Charter Schools Group Awarded $25 Million Federal Grant

By WBHM The U.S. Department of Education announced a $25 million grant today to support charter schools in Alabama. The money will go to New Schools for Alabama, an organization that encourages the growth of charter schools. Tyler Barnett, executive director of New Schools for Alabama, told WBHM in an earlier interview the money will help fund 15 schools. He said the group will focus on serving educationally disadvantaged students. Read more.

JCMP Dedicating Its First Lynching Markers

The Jefferson County Memorial Project will be dedicating its first historical marker in honor of two men killed in the 1890s. Both Jake McKenzie and Tom Redmond worked at mines owned by the Sloss-Sheffield Iron and Steel Company. The memorial being held Monday at 6 p.m. at Sloss Furnaces, also will remember the system of convict leasing on which the JCMP has sponsored community discussions this summer. Before the dedication, the JCMP is holding a discussion on the film “Slavery by Another Name” Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center. Read more. Read BW's earlier package on lynchings in Jefferson County and JCMP's plans:

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

The Mighty Wurlitzer Returns to Its Roots at Sidewalk

WBHM Visit the Alabama Theatre in downtown Birmingham, face the stage and you might notice the red and gold console to the left. It’s a theater organ known as the Mighty Wurlitzer. It’s an instrument whose heyday has long passed. But this weekend, as part of the Sidewalk Film Festival, it’ll return to its original purpose: accompanying silent films. Read more.

Immigrant Rights Worker and Son Detained by ICE

Updated — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Homewood today detained a board member of Adelante Alabama Worker Center, a human rights group based in Hoover that has been active in obtaining the release of immigrant detainees. Marcos Baltazar and his son, who’s name was not disclosed, were detained, said Resha Swanson, Adelante policy and communications coordinator. The two, who are immigrants, were making a routine check-in with ICE at the time of their arrest. Read more.

Getting by in Food Deserts: Mobile Grocery Stores, Neighborhood Farms Help Residents Find Fresh Food

Roland Washington checked off the names of his neighbors who had come to buy groceries at the mobile store that twice a month visits his apartment complex near Tarrant, an area of Birmingham that has few to no options for fresh food. The mini crowd-control task for which Washington volunteers his time is managing the people who come to take advantage of the wholesale-priced fresh produce, meat and other food provisions sold on a first come-first serve basis. He makes sure no more than a few people enter the trailer at a time. For Washington and his neighbors, that mobile grocery store is the difference between getting fresh vegetables and fruits or not. The Corner Market, the mobile grocery store run through a program of the Community Food Bank of Central Alabama, is an initiative aimed at relieving the difficulties faced by people who live in food deserts. Food deserts are defined as areas where at least 500 people live more than half a mile from a full-service grocery store. The lack of access to fresh food is a problem faced by people across the world. About 23.5 million people in the U.S. live in food deserts, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. Nearly half of them are low-income. Closer to home, almost 2 million people in Alabama live in food deserts, according to a 2015 report on food access by the The Food Trust. In Jefferson County, that number is 205,657. In Birmingham, 69 percent of residents live far enough away from a grocery store to make it difficult for them to obtain fresh food, Mayor Randall Woodfin told the City Council in a meeting this spring. He said part of all nine council districts exist in a food desert. The Corner Market and other mobile grocery stores are one way communities are trying to alleviate the difficulties for people who live in food deserts. Read more.

Self-Storage on Montclair Allowed Despite Moratorium

A self-storage facility on Montclair Road will be allowed to expand despite a citywide moratorium on such businesses, the Birmingham City Council decided Tuesday. The council voted to allow Montclair Storage to continue with construction on a 10,000-square-foot expansion to its current facility, which had been roughly halfway completed when the council enacted the moratorium last month. The facility currently operates in a building formerly occupied by the now shuttered Montclair Baptist Medical Center; the expansion would also be on that property. Read more.

With Low-Impact Development, Cities Hope to Better Control Runoff

WBHM Stormwater runoff is what washes off of parking lots, roadways and rooftops when it rains. Eve Brantley, associate professor of crop, soil and environmental sciences at Auburn University, said it may sound harmless, but it has a big impact. “I just feel like it’s the forgotten pollution,” Brantley said. She said part of the problem is that stormwater picks up other pollutants like trash and fertilizer. The other issue is the sheer volume of runoff that is discharged into area waterways. Cahaba Riverkeeper David Butler sees the impact on a daily basis. “So we’re pushing so much water into the river so fast now that, you know when it rains, instead of soaking into the ground, it’s all channeled to the river,” Butler said. “So it rises really quick, falls really quick, and you get a lot more erosion like this.” He said all along the river, large sections of the bank have collapsed, often during rainstorms. This strips away vegetation that normally acts as a buffer, leaving dirt to erode into the river and fill it with sediment. Read more.

Reading Birmingham: Miss Fancy Tells Sweet Story of Jim Crow’s Harsh Reality

“Meet Miss Fancy” by Irene Latham; illustrated by John Holyfield (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019). Miss Fancy the elephant is a Birmingham legend. In her children’s book “Meet Miss Fancy,” Birmingham author Irene Latham uses that legend and the truth behind it to tell a story of race, exclusion and hope. Read more.

Harvard Training Leads to Action Plans for BCS

Birmingham City Schools administrators who participated in Harvard University’s Public Leadership Project presented the school board with actions they’ve implemented as a result of attending the program. In the Aug. 13 board meeting, the team cited the district’s troubled history of superintendent turnover, inconsistent instructional guidelines and poorly defined roles for principals as instructional leaders as the reason 72% of the schools currently score “D” and “F” on the state Educational Report Card. The team identified five strategies for improving schools to a “C” grade or higher by 2023. Read more.