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Louisiana

The Full Story Of How Louisianans Defeated The ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill

May 7, 2022 Serena Sojic-Borne, Fight Back News. , , ,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana - On May 3, the Louisiana House of Representatives Education Committee struck down this state’s version of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by a seven to four vote. This decision came after a mass upsurge of students, parents, teachers, social workers and LGBTQ+ community members demanding to shut the bill down. HB 837, the “Don’t Say Gay” or “Classroom censorship” bill, attempted to prohibit all discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in K-8 classrooms. On top of this, it was an effort to ban teachers from disclosing their gender identities or sexual orientations to students. Once a legislator introduces a bill in either chamber of the legislature (House or Senate), it must meet the approval of a legislative committee before going for a full floor vote.

New Orleans: Hundreds Unite To March Against Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation

March 29, 2022 Quest Riggs, Fight Back News. , , ,
New Orleans, LA - Around 250 community members gathered at New Orleans City Hall, March 25, to forcefully voice their opposition to a string of legislation introduced by Louisiana Republicans in recent weeks. This includes bills that would restrict trans minors’ access to healthcare, their ability to participate in school sports, and could criminalize LGBTQ+ students and educators for being “out” in Louisiana schools. The demonstration was attended mostly by students from three New Orleans high schools who have taken the initiative in organizing bold actions both on and off their campuses. Earlier in the day students at Benjamin Franklin High School held a walkout where hundreds of their classmates marched to the front of the school chanting “We say gay!”

‘They Saw Me And Thought The Worst’

September 25, 2021 Richard A. Webster, Pro Publica. , , ,
As Sojourner Gibbs pulled out of her parking space at a Sam’s Club in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, one afternoon last summer, she felt the familiar, sickening symptoms of diabetic shock. Weakness, confusion. She began to sweat and shake uncontrollably. And then, Gibbs said, panic set in. Her car lurched forward a few feet. She slammed on the brakes. The groceries she had just purchased for her family’s Juneteenth barbecue jostled in the back. People started honking their horns. A concerned woman walked up to her car. “I’m a diabetic! I need help!” Gibbs yelled. The woman called 911. Dispatcher notes show a report of a “Black female sitting/screaming” in a gold Ford Expedition. “Appears scared.” Moments later: “Needs EMS.”

Louisiana Plastics Plant Put On Pause In A Win For Activists

August 21, 2021 Oliver Laughland, The Guardian. , , ,
The US government has placed further delays on a proposed multibillion dollar plastics plant in south Louisiana, marking a major victory for environmental activists and members of the majority Black community who have campaigned for years against construction. The planned $9.4bn petrochemical facility, owned by Formosa Plastics, would roughly double toxic emissions in its local area and, according to environmentalists, release up to 13m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, the equivalent of three coal-fired power plants, to become one of the largest pollution-causing plastics facilities in the world. The 14 separate plastic plants, spread over a gargantuan 2,300 acres of land in St James Parish, could also emit up to 15,400 pounds of the cancer causing chemical ethylene oxide.

Rebellions Break Out In Lafayette And Kenosha

August 26, 2020 It's Going Down. , , ,
A new round of uprisings has kicked off across the so-called United States following the police killings of Trayford Pellerin, “a 31-year-old Black man who was fatally shot Friday night” in Lafayette, New Orleans and 29-year-old Jacob Blake, also Black, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Pellerin was killed after police were called to the scene of a convenience store after someone called in reports of a man walking around with a knife. Police responded by first tasering Pallerin and then shooting him after he walked toward a gas station door.

Louisiana Supreme Court Upholds Racist Modern Day ‘Pig Law’

August 9, 2020 Zack Linly, The Root. , , ,
There has been plenty of discussion about whether prison is more about rehabilitation, punishment or keeping society safe. However, for Black people especially, it often seems like there’s a fourth option: Prison is about throwing undesirable people away. More than 20 years ago, a Black man was given a life sentence for stealing a pair of hedge clippers. Last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied that man a request to have his sentence reviewed citing prior bad acts, most of which were nonviolent. Only one of the seven justices on the bench agreed that his sentence should be reviewed—the Black one.

Activists Charged With Felonies After Delivering Formosa Plastic Pollution To Lobbyists

June 28, 2020 Julie Dermansky and Sharon Kelly, Desmog Blog. , , ,
Two Louisiana environmental activists, Anne Rolfes and Kate McIntosh, were taken in handcuffs and leg irons from a Baton Rouge police station to jail after they voluntarily surrendered themselves on felony charges after months' earlier delivering plastic pollution pulled from Texas waters to fossil fuel lobbyists' homes. The two posted bond and were released later the same day. “The women are accused of terrorizing oil and gas lobbyists by giving them a file box full of plastic pellets found in Texas bays near a plastic manufacturing facility owned by Formosa Plastics,” NOLA.com reports. Rolfes and McIntosh are being charged with felony “terrorizing” under Louisiana Revised Statute 14:40.1, according to their attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Pam Spees. The charges carry sentences of up to 15 years imprisonment.

Louisiana Tribes File Complaint With United Nations Over U.S. Inaction On Climate Change

January 21, 2020 Sara Sneath, Nola.com , , ,
Four coastal Louisiana tribes that claim the U.S. government has violated their human rights by failing to take action on climate change submitted a formal complaint Wednesday to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Sea-level rise and coastal erosion are drowning tribal burial sites in South Louisiana, according to the complaint. Continued land loss further threatens the tribes' source of food, said Shirell Parfait-Dardar, chief of the Grand Caillou and Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians.

I Spent 16 Months In Solitary Confinement And Now I’m Fighting To End It

July 9, 2019 By Kiana Calloway, Nationofchange.org , , ,
I was just 17 years old when I was sent to solitary confinement in “Camp J,” one of the most severe lockdown units at one of America’s most brutal prisons, the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. I languished in solitary for 16 months. Back then I didn’t know that Louisiana was the solitary confinement capital of the world. All I knew was that I’d been convicted of a crime I didn’t commit, and I had to maintain my humanity in one of the most dehumanizing places on earth. It’s called “23 and 1” because you spend 23 hours alone in your cell, with one hour to take a shower or make a phone call, if allowed.

Judge Denies Cancer Alley Marchers’ Request To Cross Louisiana Bridges

June 11, 2019 Staff, Ccrjustice.org , , , ,
May 31, 2019, Baton Rouge, Louisiana – Today, a judge in Louisiana denied an emergency request by community leaders to march across two Mississippi river bridges as part of a five-day march through Cancer Alley. During the hearing, an attorney for the state police said that such marches are against the law and subject to felony charges, citing a law that carries up to 15 years imprisonment. The march, organized by the Coalition Against Death Alley, seeks to bring attention to the poisoning of Black communities in Louisiana’s Mississippi River parishes by hundreds of petrochemical companies.

Environmental Justice March Hits Road Block In Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

June 1, 2019 By Julie Dermansky, Desmogblog.com , ,
On May 30, around 100 people took part on the first day of a planned five-day march for environmental justice in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. Amid sweltering heat, the march kicked off in St. John the Baptist Parish, but extreme obstacles have developed on their route to Baton Rouge, about 50 miles away. Today a judge ruled that the organizers did not have permission to cross two bridges along the route. Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, an 80-mile stretch along the Mississippi River, is also known as the “Petrochemical Corridor,” where there are over 100 petrochemical plants and refineries.

Louisiana Law Turning Pipeline Protests Into Felonies Violates Constitution, New Lawsuit Alleges

May 27, 2019 By Sharon Kelly, Desmogblog.com , , , ,
A lawsuit filed today in federal court in Louisiana challenges the state’s “critical infrastructure” law, used to press felony charges against fossil fuel pipeline construction opponents, as unconstitutional. Louisiana’s critical infrastructure law is unconstitutionally vague and broad, the suit alleges, because it lets “any authorized person” exclude people from public places like sidewalks and roads if the state’s 125,000 miles of mostly unmarked pipelines cross there. The law could even be used to bring felony charges against a landowner for being on their own land, the lawsuit alleges.

Asylum Seekers Are Being “Disappeared” in Private Louisiana Jails

May 18, 2019 Mike Ludwig, Truthout ,
(Some names in this story have been changed to protect those criminalized for migration.) There isn’t much to see around

Petrochemical Giants Are Slowly Killing Black Louisiana Communities

March 13, 2019 Mike Ludwig, Truthout.org , ,
Milton Cayette Jr. has just returned from a birthday party at the senior center in Welcome, one of the unincorporated hamlets nestled beside the earthen levee running along the east bank of the Mississippi River in the 5th District of Louisiana’s St. James Parish. Sitting in the kitchen of his home, Cayette begins listing the petrochemical facilities in the area, starting about five miles upriver near the Sunshine Bridge, where a chemical plant run by the company Mosaic produces diammonium phosphate and ammonia. Next door another plant produces styrene, a chemical used to make rubbers and plastics.

Court: Non-Unanimous Jury Verdict Unconstitutional Based On Racism

October 23, 2018 Kevin Gosztola and Brian Sonenstein, Shadowproof.com , ,
A district court in Louisiana ruled the state’s use of non-unanimous juries is unconstitutional and violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. The court found the “non-unanimous jury verdict scheme in Louisiana was motivated by invidious racial discrimination.” “All cases that are currently pending trial and all cases on direct review must now be adjudicated subject ot a unanimous jury requirement,” the court ordered. However, prior cases and convictions may not be challenged. According to the state’s constitution and a section of the state’s criminal code, cases involving capital punishment require a unanimous decision by jurors.
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