When cinephile and Germantown resident Stephanye R. Watts entered the world of independent cinema, she discovered a troubling pattern. “I started to notice there were no other Black people in the theater, unless they were like 60-plus,” Watts says. “Black millennials are on the internet, talking about wanting to see more Black films, and …
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Before her mother died in 2020 at age 46 of heart failure, complicated by diabetes, lupus and lung disease, Lelache Word (aka Lela), then 15, was living in Arizona with her mother, stepfather and step-siblings. Strapped by her mother’s staggering medical bills, the family sometimes slept in the car or hotels. After her mother’s death,
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On May 8, the City of Philadelphia cleared a homeless encampment that stretched two blocks on Kensington Avenue between East Allegheny Avenue and Orleans Street under the Market-Frankford Line. This clearing marked the first step of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s five-phase plan to dramatically improve Kensington, whose residents contend with extreme poverty, open-air drug markets and
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It was a warm, late spring morning and traffic was light in West Philadelphia. Not the vehicular kind: the lurching, beeping and swerving on thoroughfares such as Market and Chestnut were as hectic as ever. But things were slow around several Indego Bike Share stations that now pepper the corridor from 50th to 60th streets.
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Among the many reporting experiences accumulated in my 13-year career as a journalist, a walk in Philadelphia’s John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in 2022 stands out as one of the most memorable. I was invited there by various leaders from the Black birding community, who were in town to celebrate the 3rd Annual Black Birders
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In this issue we take a closer look at how environmental problems disproportionately affect communities of color, and particularly low-income communities of color. More than those of whiter and more affluent communities, their residents breathe air poisoned by industrial facilities like refineries or by the tailpipes of unending lines of cars and trucks. Often homes
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Why is it that low-income and communities of color bear the brunt of industrial pollution? And when environmentally hazardous facilities move into their neighborhoods, why don’t people leave? These are some of the questions that guide the environmental justice movement, which seeks to address the disproportionate environmental harm marginalized communities face. Dorceta Taylor, professor of
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This story was originally published in Hidden City Philadelphia. Last fall, after Philadelphia announced the release of a request for proposal to develop one of the most notoriously blighted areas of the city, the Logan Triangle, a bevy of reporters called up Charlene Samuels, chairperson for the Logan Civic Association, to get community perspective. With
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In the early hours of September 17, 2023, Mazzie Casher and Steven Pickens were foot patrolling near A Street and Indiana Avenue in Kensington, a hotspot for gun murders. The co-founders of the Philly Truce Foundation, a nonprofit that tackles gun violence among the city’s Black youth, were accompanied by a Philadelphia police officer and
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Grid is honoring Black Birders Week (May 26 – June 1) by printing an obituary recently published by the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) about their first Black member, James “Jim” Carroll. On the 30th anniversary of the founding of the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, June 30, 2002, pioneering Black birder Jim
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