Word In Black

AI needs electricity. Electricity needs power plants. And the Trump administration just ordered a 40-year-old coal plant in Orlando to keep burning instead of retiring. The cost: $6.2 million a month, 45 premature deaths a year, and higher utility bills for a city that's 23% Black. An NAACP report found that nearly 8 in 10 Black Americans lived within 30 miles of a coal plant. The plants are closing everywhere. Unless AI needs them to stay open. W***y Blackmore follows the money.

Amid AI Boom, Coal Returns — With a Familiar Cost Trump's order keeping an Orlando coal plant online renews environmental justice concerns over who pays AI's pollution bill.

Some stories don't expire. Every weekend, we resurface Word In Black reporting that's just as relevant now as the day it was published. New readers, this is your entry point. Long-time followers, this is your reminder to share.
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Here's one worth revisiting 👇

🗂️ Joy is a cookout, a step team, a block party. It's the inside jokes passed down in families. It's medicine. And it's ours. This piece is a reminder that joy is not the absence of struggle. It's the refusal to let struggle have the last word. End your weekend with this.

Black Joy Is Our Secret Weapon, Use It Joy that knows what it costs to be alive and Black in America and still chooses to shine anyway is a much-needed form of resistance.

📰 WEEKLY ROUND UP: From the Archives 📰
Some stories don't expire. Every weekend, we resurface Word In Black reporting that's just as relevant now as the day it was published. New readers, this is your entry point. Long-time followers, this is your reminder to share.
🔔 Follow, subscribe, or like this post so the algorithm knows you're listening.
Here's one worth revisiting 👇

🗂️ In a community in the Carolina Lowcountry, young people are preserving Gullah Geechee recipes through zine-making. They're documenting the dishes their grandmothers cooked, the techniques passed down by oral tradition, and the cultural knowledge that disappears when nobody writes it down. This is preservation as an act of resistance.

S.C. Teens Make Zines to Keep Gullah Geechee Recipes Alive The zines were inspired by popular foods from Gullah Geechee culture.

📰 WEEKLY ROUND UP 📰
Every weekend, Word In Black highlights the stories that mattered most this week. If you missed something, we've got you. If you caught everything, share this with someone who didn't.
🔔 Follow, subscribe, or like this post so the algorithm knows you're listening. The more you engage, the more our journalism reaches the people who need it.
Here's what you should be reading 👇

Over 7,000 people sick across 34 states. One lettuce supplier with five prior recalls. $3.8 million in donations to Republican-aligned groups. And the FDA walked back its own positive test result after the company's CEO reportedly visited the White House. Meanwhile, DOGE fired thousands of FDA food safety inspectors. Jennifer Porter Gore follows the money, the politics, and the lettuce.

The 'Slo-Mo' Recall of Lettuce Linked to the Cyclospora Outbreak Federal and state health officials are investigating the cause of a nationwide outbreak that has sickened thousands of people in 34 states.

📰 WEEKLY ROUND UP 📰
Every weekend, Word In Black highlights the stories that mattered most this week. If you missed something, we've got you. If you caught everything, share this with someone who didn't.
🔔 Follow, subscribe, or like this post so the algorithm knows you're listening. The more you engage, the more our journalism reaches the people who need it.
Here's what you should be reading 👇

Black Women's Equal Pay Day landed this week. It marks how far into 2026 Black women have to work to earn what white men earned in 2025 alone. That's 65 cents on the dollar. Levi Perrin traces the gap from the Atlanta washerwomen's strike of 1881 to the 300,000 federal jobs lost this year. The wage gap is the visible crack. The foundation problem goes much deeper.

Black Women's Equal Pay Day Is About More Than Wages Black Women's Equal Pay Day challenges the nation to rethink opportunity, wealth building, and economic equity.

This is week Rev. Dorothy asks and answers the question "Can the Black Church be reimagined. Read the full article and tell us what you think in the comments.

Can the Black Church Be Reimagined? Harlem First Thinks So Rather than mourn empty pews, Harlem First is creating a new model of Black worship rooted in culture, justice and radical welcome.

📰 WEEKLY ROUND UP 📰
Every weekend, Word In Black highlights the stories that mattered most this week. If you missed something, we've got you. If you caught everything, share this with someone who didn't.
🔔 Follow, subscribe, or like this post so the algorithm knows you're listening. The more you engage, the more our journalism reaches the people who need it.
Here's what you should be reading 👇

She gave the church a decade. When her marriage fell apart, her writing ministry was pulled. Her husband kept leading worship every Sunday. Dorothy Boulware sat with divorced Black women and a family therapist to unpack a pattern nobody in the church talks about openly: the women who leave the marriage almost always lose the church too.

Divorce in the Black Church: Why Women Often Bear the Blame Interviews with divorced church members, therapists and ministry leaders reveal how patriarchal traditions can shape who is believed, who is blamed and who remains part of the congregation after a marriage ends.

📰 WEEKLY ROUND UP 📰
Every weekend, Word In Black highlights the stories that mattered most this week. If you missed something, we've got you. If you caught everything, share this with someone who didn't.
🔔 Follow, subscribe, or like this post so the algorithm knows you're listening. The more you engage, the more our journalism reaches the people who need it.
Here's what you should be reading 👇

We put three women solving the Black maternal health crisis in a room together last week. Dr. Kaytura Felix described watching hospital staff mock a midwife's client. Tamara Mason described giving 25 pregnant women $1,000 a month. Kay Matthews explained why her support groups stock diapers at every session. Jennifer Porter Gore has the full recap.

Saving Black Mothers Starts Outside the Hospital Black maternal mortality reflects more than medical failures. A Word In Black discussion explored how community support, mental health and financial security can mean the difference between life and death.

📰 WEEKLY ROUND UP: From the Archives 📰
Some stories don't expire. Every weekend, we resurface Word In Black reporting that's just as relevant now as the day it was published. New readers, this is your entry point. Long-time followers, this is your reminder to share.
🔔 Follow, subscribe, or like this post so the algorithm knows you're listening.
Here's one worth revisiting 👇

🗂️ Black men are more likely to develop prostate cancer, more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage, and more likely to die from it than any other demographic in the country. This deeply reported piece follows the men navigating the diagnosis and the doctors trying to reach them earlier. If you have a father, brother, or uncle over 40, send this.

When Prostate Cancer Comes for Black Men We followed a longtime journalist on his journey battling the disease.