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Louisiana



  • Will the Debt Ceiling Deal Derail Environmental Justice?

    by Robert Bullard and Larry Shapiro

    The idea of permitting reform—easing the environmental constraints on building new energy infrastructure—has been a bargaining chip in the debt ceiling negotiations. Reforms could help bring a green energy grid online, but it could also put more polluting industry in poor and minority communities. 



  • Will Louisiana Ban Study of Racism Outright?

    Republican state officials in a party resolution appear to hold the position that "inglorious aspects" of American history are too divisive to be discussed in state institutions of highe education. 



  • Cajun Radio is Keeping Louisiana French Alive

    "Cajuns were punished for speaking French in school, Cajun GIs left the region to fight in the world wars and learned English, the discovery of oil ushered in more English, and television further diluted the language."



  • Homer Plessy's Posthumous Pardon Finally Recognizes His Heroism

    by Keisha N. Blain

    "The decision to pardon Plessy and finally clear his record are the culmination of efforts by Keith Plessy, the great-great-grandson of Homer Plessy’s cousin, and Phoebe Ferguson, the great-great-granddaughter of John H. Ferguson, the Louisiana judge who upheld the state's Separate Car Act."



  • ‘One Oppressive Economy Begets Another’

    Slavery and Jim Crow deprived Black communities in Louisiana of wealth and power, and enabled contemporary environmental racism. But slavery-era cemeteries are becoming part of efforts by those communities to fight back against polluters. 



  • Forgotten Camps, Living History: Japanese Internment in the South

    by Jason Christian

    Camp Livingston, deep in the Louisiana pines, used to be the site of a World War II Japanese internment camp. Drawing from the memories of internees, the research of two Louisiana State University librarians and other historians, and the activism of survivors and their descendants, this story uncovers a buried piece of American history.