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Center for Public Integrity
In Oklahoma’s Black Belt, land ownership and power built Black wealth
The biggest weekend of the year in this tiny town kicks off with an hours-long parade. Cowboys and cowgirls trot their horses along downtown blocks lined with watchful spectators and vendors selling their juiciest barbecue meats. Inside a squatty stone community center, a vintage photography exhibit documents Boley’s better days,...
Boley was a rip-roaring place, honey (transcript)
Nate Bradford, Jr. is standing at a large round grill in his hometown of Boley, Oklahoma. It’s Memorial Day weekend, and he’s cooking up beef burgers. Not for your typical family cookout to celebrate the holiday, no. Nate’s cooking for hungry parade spectators. And he’s not the only one getting ready.
What’s the effect of school voucher programs on students with disabilities?
Several years ago, West Virginia parent Christy Black searched for an inclusive private school for her daughter Gracie, who has Down syndrome, but to no avail. “There wasn’t any in my area or a few counties over, even, that would accept my daughter,” Black recalled. So it...
How families fleeing violence won — then lost — the green card lottery
Osama Mohamed let out a sigh of relief as he and his wife stood at the steps of the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the first day of September. Clutched tightly in his hands was the letter he’d been chasing for nearly a year and a half. “Congratulations!” its bolded words declared. “Your U.S. Visa has been approved.”
Why is accurate data about Black farmers so hard to get?
As a third-generation Black farmer in Arkansas, Dewayne Goldmon understands the frustrations of Black farmers trying to get more aid for past injustices from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But as the senior advisor for racial equity to the USDA secretary, he also understands why the agency has struggled to...
Dancing With The Devil (transcript)
Nate Bradford’s relationship with the USDA started about two decades ago, when he was fresh out of college, and decided he wanted to be a rancher. He needed land and a loan to buy it. So he went to the branch of the USDA that deals with loans, the Farm Service Agency.
Reporting on workers who rebuild after natural disasters
I felt anxious asking disaster restoration workers to share their experiences with exposure to toxins such as asbestos, lead and mold on the job in New Orleans this past spring during a reporting trip. The trip was at the heart of our project, Toxic Labor, which documents the hidden health...
‘Black farmers and ranchers, it’s a dying deal.’
The morning sun hugs the horizon just as Nate Bradford Jr. hops into his pickup truck to make the hour drive home. Many in this rural Oklahoma town are getting ready to go to work. Bradford is getting off. He works as a gas plant operator, earning around $70,000 a year.
The Cowboy Way and the Color Line (Transcript)
It’s a Saturday morning in eastern Oklahoma. The sky is clear and big…the air is sticky and hot — and the mosquitos are vicious. I’m here to meet a local rancher named Nate Bradford Jr. One of our producers, Camille, is with me. We’re at Nate’s corral: a cluster of pens on rolling, grassy land.
10 things you need to know about today’s Black farmers
Public Integrity doesn’t have paywalls and doesn’t accept advertising so that our investigative reporting can have the widest possible impact on addressing inequality in the U.S. Our work is possible thanks to support from people like you.
Heist Season 3: Who’s who
In Season 3 of The Heist, we dig into the long, documented history of government discrimination, and what the U.S. Department of Agriculture is doing to turn that history around. Along the way, we travel to eastern Oklahoma and hear from the following cast of farmers, advocates, government officials and subject matter experts.
Time for young migrants to ‘take the mic’ in U.S. immigration debate
In the past decade, more than half a million immigrant children have made the journey to the U.S. alone in search of their loved ones, refuge and a shot at their vision of the American dream. But once in the U.S., many of these children end up working hard jobs in exploitative conditions.
Eddie Slaughter, longtime advocate for Black farmers, dies
At six or seven years old, John Slaughter remembers getting up at night to use the bathroom and seeing his father, Eddie, asleep on the couch with his boots still on. “I took his boots off when he was still asleep, being exhausted all day, trying to farm and work the job that he had at the time,” John Slaughter said. “He fell asleep trying to figure it all out.”
Florida’s anti-immigration law targets disaster relief workers
Hurricane Ian’s raging winds and nearly 13-foot storm tide moved like a “slow tsunami” as it overtook Sanibel Island, destroying everything in its wake. The worst storm in a century washed away sections of the three-mile causeway that connects this mostly wealthy community to Southwest Florida. But...
Birth of an OSHA policy
John Henshaw didn’t know the legacy he would create in 2001, when he helped oversee the government response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Then the head of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which monitored disaster rescue workers’ exposures to dangerous toxins while toiling among the World Trade Center building debris, he made an agreement with the four companies cleaning up the site.
Inside an industry fueled by climate change
The headaches started within two weeks of their demolition and painting of dozens of mold-infested apartments. Then came the nosebleeds. Jenny and her 11 family members pooled their money to buy $30 protective masks and bottles of Advil and other over-the-counter medication to soothe the discomfort just enough to keep working.
Toxic Labor
Subscribe on Google | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon. Standing before a two-story house on the coast of Fort Myers Beach, Florida, where Hurricane Ian unleashed a seven-foot storm surge two weeks earlier, Marcos looked at the structure, shredded beyond repair. Wearing a paper mask and gloves, the 54-year-old...
Toxic labor, by the numbers
Scroll down to read the details. Public Integrity doesn’t have paywalls and doesn’t accept advertising so that our investigative reporting can have the widest possible impact on addressing inequality in the U.S. Our work is possible thanks to support from people like you. María Inés Zamudio.
Homeless and suspended in California
Federal education law explicitly seeks to help homeless children and youth stay in school, in the hopes academic opportunity will allow them to break the cycle of housing instability. Taking them out of class could worsen their chances of success. But an analysis of data in California shows the state’s...
Where are the homeless children? This struggling city isn’t finding them
School districts nationwide underestimate the number of homeless students they serve, cutting children off from assistance meant to help. An award-winning Center for Public Integrity investigation revealed the depth of the problem: Hundreds of thousands of students experiencing housing insecurity each year are likely falling through the cracks. While the...
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The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom investigating democracy, power and privilege. Our reporting focuses on the influence of money and the impact of inequality on our society.
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