A new movement wants to establish that the Haw River has its own independent, inalienable rights. It’s a long shot, but organizers hope it can change the framing of environmental protection. Originally published in The Assembly. Photos by Roderico Díaz. As a child in the 1980s, Crystal Cavalier-Keck spent summer days inside her grandmother’s classroom […]
Cumulative Impacts
Originally published in the Border Belt Independent, May 2022. LAST WINTER, AS THE N.C. DEPARTMENT of Environmental Quality (DEQ) considered a new permit for a Robeson County plant that generates electricity by burning poultry waste and wood, it turned to the public for comment. The earful it received was mighty and unanimous. The facility, owned […]
The Youngest Operative
Cutler Bryant is 17. He is also a key political strategist in Robeson County, N.C., where Lumbee voters are in the forefront of a hard shift to the Republican Party. Originally published in the Border Belt Independent. WHEN THE ROBESON COUNTY REPUBLICAN Republican Party held its annual convention in March, one of the star speakers […]
Between Place and Party
Charles Graham has rejected party orthodoxy, gone internet viral, and run a dozen points ahead of the Democratic ticket. Now, his bid for an upset congressional victory highlights the challenge for North Carolina’s moderate rural Democrats. Originally published in The Assembly. Photos by Roderico Díaz. One of the most viral ads of the current election cycle […]
The Contested Swamps of Robeson County
Click here for “The Contested Swamps of Robeson County,” The Assembly, September 2021.
The Contested Swamps of Robeson County
A behemoth natural-gas facility, sitting atop a disrupted archeological site, represents the latest environmental challenge for one of the state’s most diverse yet burdened counties. But the debate over history, benefit, and protection is far more complicated than it first appears. Originally published in The Assembly. Photos by Roderico Díaz. Wakulla, North Carolina is an […]
How a Louisiana tribe is using generations of resilience to handle the pandemic
The Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw have long practiced self-isolation and sustainable food production, which they hope will help keep their number of COVID-19 cases low. Originally published in Southerly. WHEN THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK FIRST REACHED Louisiana and residents were ordered to stay at home, Marie Marlene V. Foret tapped into some of the skills […]
As Sea Level Rise Threatens Their Ancestral Village, a Louisiana Tribe Fights to Stay Put
They survived the BP oil disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and decades of industry spoiling their wetlands. Whatever their future holds, the people of Grand Bayou want to decide it for themselves. Originally published in onEarth. TEN YEARS AGO, AS NEWS OF THE BP oil disaster reached Louisiana’s Grand Bayou Indian Village, Rosina Philippe dispatched her brother Maurice Phillips […]
Reclaiming Native Ground
Can Louisiana’s tribes restore their traditional diets as waters rise? Originally published by The Lens and the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Click here for the companion episode of the Southern Foodway Alliance’s Gravy podcast. WHEN THERESA DARDAR WAS GROWING UP in Houma, her mother used to take her to visit relatives in the Pointe-au-Chien Indian […]
At the Edge of the Gulf, Dulac Re-learns Resilience
The Houma Indians and Cajuns who live in in this South Louisiana fishing village have watched its population drop by more than 50 percent since 1990. Now they’re calling upon their traditional survival skills to help them weather some 21st-century disasters. Produced by Barry Yeoman and Richard Ziglar for KRVS, Lafayette, Louisiana, and the Louisiana […]
