People walk through MLK Park near Santa Fe and Nystrom Village neighborhoods in Richmond, California, March 23, 2021. Photos by Sarahbeth Maney for OneZero.

Black in the Time of Climate Change

Coal Is In Decline, But Its Effects Still Ravage Black and Latinx Communities

Across the U.S., people of color point to a root cause: environmental racism

Wind blows oily black dust onto cars, windowsills, and lawns as a 100-car train loaded with coal rolls past Parchester Village, a historically Black neighborhood in Richmond, California. This happens a couple of times a week. The train’s cargo, mined from the mountains of Utah by the coal giant Wolverine Fuels, will join the towering piles of coal at the Levin-Richmond Terminal, a privately owned coal shipping port seven miles away. The terminal is responsible for a quarter of the coal the United States ships from the West Coast to Asia.

The coal dust gets so thick that some say you can write your name in it. This has long been a fact of life for the residents of Parchester Village and of Santa Fe and Nystrom Village, two nearby communities of color.

“You’ve got that little black residue that people are breathing in,” says Dale Weatherspoon, pastor at Easter Hill United Methodist Church, which is near the terminal. Richmond has the highest number of emergency department visits for asthma-related symptoms in its county, Contra Costa.