Word In Black

3 days ago | wordinblack.com | Willy Blackmore

Chicago’s infamy for environmental injustice is as old as the city’s history as an industrial center. Its stockyards, train yards, and factories have always been clustered around Black and Latinx communities, often on the South and West Sides. But a new ordinance currently under consideration by the city council could finally break the long, awful tradition.

6 days ago | wordinblack.com | Joseph Williams

Did the Catholic church just choose its first African American pope? That question set Black social media on fire in the hours following the election of Robert Prevost, the first American to become pontiff in the church‚Äôs 2,000-year history.¬†The facts about Leo, the former Peru-based cardinal who won the papacy on Thursday, seem to say so ‚ÄĒ including documents suggesting he is descended from people of color with roots in a well-known Creole neighborhood in New Orleans.

6 days ago | wordinblack.com | Anissa Durham

A new initiative is transforming mental health support for Black and Brown college students, reaching over 50 campuses nationwide — and it’s just getting started. The Excellence in Mental Health on Campus program is spearheaded by The Steve Fund, a national organization that works to support the mental health and emotional well-being of young people of color. Related: Do You Have High Functioning Depression?

1 week ago | wordinblack.com | Joseph Williams

As a plume of white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, Rev. Stephen Thorne, priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was in the middle of a board meeting with the Catholic Mobilizing Network in Washington, D.C. The meeting quickly came to a standstill, though, as people soaked in the news: the College of Cardinals had chosen a successor to the late Pope Francis. And in a historic first, the new Bishop of Rome, Robert Prevost, is an American.

1 week ago | wordinblack.com | Willy Blackmore

Every single environmental justice grant made by the Environmental Protection Agency during the Biden Administration could be cancelled if the agency’s new administrator, Lee Zeldin, has his way. According to an April court filing reported on by the Washington Post, the agency has plans to scrap what has been reported as nearly 800 grants, including every single one that’s focused on environmental justice — though there is some discrepancy over the numbers.