Arrested Mobility

In 1942, the Taborian Hospital opened in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. At a time when most hospitals segregated Black from White patients or turned Black patients away, the Taborian Hospital provided equal treatment and care for all.

There is no question that desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement improved access to healthcare for Black Americans. But today, rural hospitals increasingly face closure, and healthcare disparities continue to negatively impact Black Americans. It’s worth investigating the history of the Taborian Hospital, and other hospitals that were visited and staffed by Black patients, nurses, and doctors.

In this episode, we'll talk to Myrna Smith-Thompson, Dr. Ezelle Sanford III, and Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble.

Special thanks to Lauren Sausser and KFF Health News.

For nearly her entire life, Amy Stelly has lived in the Treme district of New Orleans. Her house is near the Claiborne Expressway, a piece of Interstate-10 that was built through the neighborhood in 1969. The Claiborne Expressway is one of many American highways to divide and deprive Black communities. 

Not only has this infrastructure damaged these neighborhoods economically and culturally, but it’s also dangerous. These highways pollute the environment with high levels of noise and harmful particulate matter. So ever since she was a little girl, Amy Stelly has been determined to do something about the Claiborne Expressway.

In this episode, we'll talk to Drew Hawkins, a journalist who originally reported this story for the Gulf States Newsroom.

In 2017, Atlanta’s city planning department designated four large green spaces as quote “lungs,” that were vital for cooling the city. They announced plans to turn one of these lungs, the South River Forest, into an urban park. But four years later, there was a change in plans. The mayor approved a police and firefighter training facility to be built in that park. It’s called “The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center,” but to some, it has come to be known as “Cop City.”

There has been a concerted effort to push back against the development of the training center. But what’s interesting is that these protestors aren’t just anti-police. Many are environmental activists who don’t want to see Atlanta’s natural climate infrastructure destroyed. They know that the neighborhoods closest to the South River Forest are majority Black, historically redlined, and vulnerable to climate change.

For this episode, we spoke to Manaan Donaghoe and Hanna Love, researchers from the Brookings Institution

When low income neighborhoods receive new parks and green spaces, it can be a huge win for long-term residents. But greening initiatives can invite what we call “green gentrification.” If the rent is cheap and the neighborhood is suddenly more attractive, walkable and bikeable, then it’s very likely that wealthier people will start moving in. These are often White people entering predominantly communities of color, where due to their arrival, they begin changing the social and cultural makeup of the area. This transition doesn’t come without friction, particularly as it relates to law enforcement’s treatment of residents of color.  

Now, people in all communities have different ideas about what’s best for the places they live. Many people living in low-income neighborhoods do want parks, trees and bike lanes. It’s just a question of whether these communities can sustain greening without rapid, destructive gentrification and displacement. 

We spoke to Alessandro Rigolon, associate professor in the Department of City and Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah.

Photo by Tyler Lariviere.

Automated Traffic Enforcement, or ATE, refers to a variety of tools that are used to enforce traffic laws through technology. You usually see them as red light cameras, and speed cameras. But there are also license plate readers, bus lane enforcement cameras, and many more examples.

ATE is spreading across the country very fast. There are situations where ATE can reduce speeding, and theoretically it reduces contact between police officers and Black and Brown drivers for traffic stops. But, some believe that ATE can be used to perpetuate discrimination, racism, and abuses of power rather than support equity. 

We spoke to Priya Sarathy Jones, Deputy Executive Director at the Fines and Fees Justice Center. You can read their report, "Caution: We’re Driving the Wrong Way on Automated Traffic Enforcement," here.

A local bus or train ride usually costs between one and three dollars. But many Americans living in public transportation-dense cities choose to evade paying for transit tickets when possible. They get on the bus through the back door and avoid the driver. And in bigger cities, it’s common practice to hop the turnstile on the subway.

Fare evasion can cost transit agencies across the country tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars. It affects their ability to provide consistent bus and train service, which in turn affects riders on their way to work, school, home, or wherever they need to go.

On the other hand, enforcement of fare evasion has historically been racially targeted. When police stop people for hopping the turnstile, there is a heightened opportunity for violence against riders of color. This method of enforcement also ends up discriminating against people with lower incomes. If cities are going to enforce transit fares, it must be done in an equitable way.

We spoke to Ben Brachfeld, a transit reporter for amNewYork; Haleema Bharoocha, Policy Advocate at the Anti Police-Terror Project and author of the article, Op-Ed: Why Is Fare Evasion Punished More Severely than Speeding?; and Dr. Sogand Karbalaieali, a transportation engineer and author of the article Opinion: Fights Over Fare Evasion Are Missing the Point.

The 15-minute city, or neighborhood, was conceived by Carlos Moreno, a professor and influencer in Paris. It’s an area where residents can access everything they need in their life - food, work, school, community gathering places - within 15 minutes of their home. The 15-minute city reduces reliance on cars, improves the quality of life for residents, and makes cities more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

In a recent lecture with urban planning students at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Charles spoke to students about the delicate balance required of 15-minute cities, if they are to be adopted in the United States. 15-minute cities might work in Europe, but urban planners face unique challenges when designing American cities and neighborhoods.

In Central Wisconsin, undocumented immigrants from Latin America make up the majority of the workforce in the dairy industry. Although these undocumented folks are allowed to own and register vehicles, they can’t get driver’s licenses without legal residency. As a result, police in rural Wisconsin often racially profile drivers of color, knowing that they may not have a license to be on the road. 

We spoke to Melissa Sanchez, a reporter for ProPublica who inspired this episode with her article, “Wisconsin’s Dairy Industry Relies on Undocumented Immigrants, but the State Won’t Let Them Legally Drive.” We also heard from Tony Gonzalez, founder of the American Hispanic Association, and local dairy farmer Hans Breitenmoser.

Many Black students live in over-policed, under-funded communities. School should be a safe space for them, a refuge from surveillance and a place to explore. But almost 70% of public high schools and middle schools have police officers on site, and Black students have contact with police more often than White students. When there’s police inside the school, and police outside the school, law enforcement is a constant presence in these students' lives. 

Today, we're talking to Corey Mitchell, a senior reporter at the Center for Public Integrity who co-wrote the article "When schools call police on kids." We'll hear from Dr. DeMarcus Jenkins, an assistant professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Finally, we'll speak with Amir Whitaker, senior policy counsel with the ACLU of Southern California.

Please also consider this list of resources on the topic, compiled by Subini Ancy Annamma, Ph.D: "Education and Criminalization: Do Black Lives Matter in Schools."

In a majority Black and Latino neighborhood of Hammond, Indiana, children are clambering over and under stopped train cars to get to school. These trains are halted by rail traffic at pedestrian intersections, and there are not a lot of enforceable laws to keep them moving. Blocked crossings can pose an inconvenience, or a deadly obstacle, to Americans of all kinds. But in the United States, we usually find that the people living around train tracks are Black and Brown folks who are living in a state of arrested mobility.

In this episode, we'll talk to Topher Sanders, an investigative reporter from ProPublica who co-wrote the article, "As Rail Profits Soar, Blocked Crossings Force Kids to Crawl Under Trains to Get to School." We'll also speak to Akicia Henderson, a mother of three living in Hammond whose home is right by the train tracks.