The ‘Blackest City in America’ Is the Embodiment of Environmental Injustice

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In my family, Mississippi loomed large as a place of special menace, even in the Jim Crow South. For as long as I can remember, my father would refer to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy from Chicago whose visit to his grandparents in the Mississippi Delta resulted in a historic tragedy. For civil rights activists like my father, the martyrdom of Emmett Till encapsulated the racial violence and injustice they devoted their lives to defeating. Mississippi became a place of immense historic significance, and over the years, it has produced more than its share of notable individuals, among them were Medgar and Myrlie Evers; Lawrence Guyot; James Meredith; Fannie Lou Hamer.

Many of these heroes have since passed away. It is almost a blessing that they aren’t here to witness what has happened to our country since. I can imagine them distraught, looking just within their own state. What would they make of Jackson, the state’s capital, now?

Today, Jackson is the embodiment of neglect, of collapsing infrastructure, of environmental injustice at its most extreme. Families have been left without sufficient water pressure to flush toilets. Students must attend school virtually because of failing water and sanitation infrastructure. Cancer patients have been asked to leave hospitals because the water conditions are unsafe. These are the circumstances in a capital city—unheard of in the rest of America.

Jackson is often referred to as the “Blackest city in America,” because African Americans comprise more than 80% of its population. Overall, however, its population has been declining. By 2023 there were fewer than 150,000 residents. Once, white people made up half the city’s population; now they make up around 15%.

Jackson shows how environmental inequity and climate change inevitably occupy the same space. It’s also an example of the effects of climate change exacerbating failing infrastructure. Natural disasters force us to think about the diffuse damage caused by systemic neglect and unlivable environments over a period of time. Why don’t we see and respond to this long-term deterioration with the same kind of urgency we bring to natural disasters?

On my recent visit to Jackson, the young woman who drove me around described the copper-colored water that poured out of her grandmother’s faucet. Her grandmother was so resigned to the fact that her tap water was unsafe that boiling it was simply a fact of life. She was not alone. Residents of Jackson routinely must boil their water to ensure its safety—that is, when the pipes have not collapsed and there is water available to boil.

In 2010, several water mains broke during an intense winter storm and state officials blocked efforts—such as new bond issues or local sales taxes—to fix the problems that created the mess in the first place. This has been a recurring dynamic over the years: the water system collapses in some way, residents are left in dire straits, and state officials refuse to intervene, while the city loses its tax base, its appeal to investors, and its capacity to retain a vibrant multigenerational community.

Another water main break in 2016 that was not repaired for seven years left a massive, waterlogged ditch next to a golf course. In the winter of 2020, Jackson was inundated with a record amount of rainfall, which the sewage system could not withstand. Nearly a half billion—yes, with a b—gallons of raw or barely treated sewage ended up in the Pearl River. A bipartisan group of state legislators devised a plan for collecting overdue payments without bankrupting residents as a way to provide funds to address the failing water system. The bill passed the state legislature only to be vetoed by Governor Tate Reeves. “Other cities have issues too, why should only Jackson get a carve-out?” he asked. “There are needy Mississippians who would rather not pay their bills all over.”

And here is where the water problem becomes an environmental justice crisis. When we pay for our water, we pay not just for what circulates in our homes but also for sewage and stormwater costs. In poor cities with degraded water systems, low-income residents are burdened with overwhelmingly expensive water bills.

In 2021, yet another freak winter storm disabled Jackson’s decayed infrastructure. Pipes burst, water mains were rendered useless, and freezing temperatures left residents without water for over a month. Yet again, efforts to address the problem were stonewalled by the governor and state legislature. In August 2022, unusually heavy rainfall caused the Pearl River to flood, and once more the crumbling infrastructure collapsed. Again, parts of the city had no running water, while the rest lived under a boil-water notice. The water pressure was so low that it was impossible to take a shower or flush a toilet. According to Gov. Reeves, the city “[could] not produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets, and to meet other critical needs.” And still, he and the state legislature—overwhelmingly white and Republican—blocked the essential funds for repairing the system. Only a few months later, when thousands descended on the city during Jackson State University’s homecoming game, the water system nearly collapsed under the strain.

That’s when the federal government finally intervened. President Joe Biden declared a 90-day state of emergency. Later that year, the Department of Justice alleged that Jackson had failed to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act, and, in a settlement, a federal court order appointed an “interim third-party manager” of the water system. Jackson should also have received tens of millions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act for its water systems; in May 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a complaint to the Department of the Treasury, alleging that the state legislature again made it nearly impossible for the city to access the funds they needed.

I keep wondering: Why would officials in Mississippi allow their capital city to die? The answer might be the fact that Jackson has long had a large, progressive Black population. As a student of history, I am unable to look at the challenges of environmental justice untethered from all the social and political forces that preceded them. Considering the catastrophic unfolding of the water crisis in Jackson—and the repeated refusals by the governor and state legislature to meaningfully address it—it seems to be hardly a coincidence that Jackson has a large Black population in a state with a storied racist past. What’s happening is not armed combat; it is a slow-motion assault.

How does this serve the state of Mississippi? Starving a capital city suggests that your state is not a good place for investment. Instead, it is a billboard for inequality. And yet, history can also offer us the reassurance that even during the darkest times, as the great singer-song writer Sam Cooke, a son of Mississippi himself, assured us, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

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