Author: Daja E. Henry

Daja E. Henry is an editorial fellow. Before joining The 19th, she covered education and Covid-19 data for The Daily Memphian. Her previous experience includes The Wall Street Journal, Cronkite News and Cronkite Noticias. She is a graduate of Howard University and Arizona State University.

Originally published by The 19th We’re answering the “how” and “why” of the intersection of environment and race news. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. First, the butterflies disappeared. Then, the family dog died; and then the neighbors did, too. But Marquita Bradshaw’s biggest loss of those adolescent days was probably her great-grandmother. Susie Hall died in 1995 after developing uterine and kidney cancers. “We lost our matriarch. … She was the kind of person that would cook enough Sunday dinner for the whole church and the neighborhood too,” Bradshaw said. She attributes her great-grandmother’s death, like many of those in…

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Described as “the backbone of the environmental justice movement,” these women pioneered the work to protect communities Originally published by The 19th This Black History Month, The 19th is telling the untold stories of women, women of color and LGBTQ+ people. Subscribe to their daily newsletter. When Leah Thomas was earning her degree in environmental studies, she found that what she was learning in college and her personal experience did not match up. Thomas, who is Black, noticed that the environmentalists she was studying did not look like her, nor did they look like the Black women she knew to…

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