“I think it is happening because the county is majority Black. We’re rural, and we may not speak standard English all the time, so people may think that we’re not smart. But we’re smart enough to know when we’re being screwed.”
HAYNEVILLE, Ala. — The raw sewage pooling all over Jerry Dean Smith’s neighborhood and flowing into the yards where children play and adults scrape out a living is a daily reminder of the poverty and lack of infrastructure enveloping residents here.
In neighborhoods like Smith’s, the plumbing systems in some of the houses are tied into the county system but aren’t working properly, or the connections have failed entirely. Instead, many rely on pumping their sewage into holes in their yards. It is part of a growing push by the Justice Department to treat the failure of local governments to deliver adequate services — particularly when it comes to environmental issues — as a possible civil rights violation that should be investigated and litigated.
Flowers, who is also on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, took Justice Department officials around the county to see the problems firsthand. She believes they are the results of systemic racism.“I think it is happening because the county is majority Black,” she said. “We’re rural, and we may not speak standard English all the time, so people may think that we’re not smart. But we’re smart enough to know when we’re being screwed.
Smith had a blunt message for Justice Department officials: “I hope that y’all coming to work it for real. And not play us for stupid or crazy.”“Whether it's discrimination, direct or indirect, the net result is we need a waste management system,” he said. “We need a treatment center in this town to address the issues, and it is a health care problem.”The situation feels like stepping back 100 years, said Robert D.
Bradley has started a nonprofit pilot program to put septic tanks on some properties. But she said the organization doesn’t have resources to help everyone. “That’s why we have to keep pushing,” he said, “not only to get easy access to the poll and the right to vote, but to get better sewage and better water for the entire community.”