Bullard Center and Elba, AL Shiloh Community Flood Victims to Attend NAACP National Convention in Las Vegas

Houston, TX, July 11, 2024 – A delegation from the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University and leaders from the Elba, Alabama Shiloh highway flood-impacted community will attend the NAACP National Convention held in Las Vegas, NV on July 13-17.  The Bullard Center team will be led by Dr. Robert D. Bullard, who is often called the “father of environmental justice.” He will be joined by Dr. Glenn S. Johnson and Steven Washington.  The Shiloh community leaders who will make the trip include Pastor Timothy Williams, his daughter Melissa Williams and 79-year-old Army veteran Willie Horstead, Jr.  The Elba veteran spent 33 years in the military and came home to retire. His inherited Shiloh homestead is now being washed away by floodwaters from US Highway 84. “People often say thankyou for your service. But usually, they don’t mean it.  The best way the government can thank me is to fix the flooding problem and make me and my community whole,” states Horstead.  

The delegation’s main goal is to get a commitment from NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson to visit Shiloh this summer and witness firsthand what Black home, business and property owners have lived with for more than six years. The faulty US 84 highway infrastructure expansion project is drowning a Black community in South Alabama—proving all infrastructure projects are not created equal.   “We make this ‘journey to justice’ trip from Shiloh to Las Vegas to get our highway flooding issue on the national radar of the NAACP President Johnson. While we represent Shiloh, we also carry a similar message from a half dozen other Black communities in our HBCU-CBO Gulf Coast Equity Consortium network that are impacted by highway flooding,” states Pastor  Williams.

The Shiloh community has been plagued by constant flooding since 2018—after the US84 highway infrastructure project was elevated and expanded the road from two to four lanes—placing the Shiloh community in a hole. The community has been living with this flooding condition for six and half long years without relief.  “We need relief from this nightmare caused by US 84 highway expansion. We experience constant flooding, sinking homes, overflowing septic systems, sewer backups, cracked foundations, structural damage to roofs, walls, and floors, and loss of homeowners insurance coverage. It’s ruining our lives, homes and community,” says Pastor Williams, who inherited the home from his grandmother.   

The Bullard Center and Deep South Center for Environmental Justice recently kicked off the Water Justice, Climate and Health Equity Project designed to help HBCU-CBO partners implement programs and plans to address at-risk infrastructure, water and flooding issues, health and climate vulnerability and resilience in Gulf South communities.

The flood damaged communities and nonprofits organization participating in the Water Justice Project include: Shiloh, Elba, AL Shiloh Community Center (SCC), Fifth Ward, Houston, TX (COCO), Pleasantville, Houston, TX (ACTS), Turkey Creek Gulfport, MS, (EECHO), Alsen St. Irma Lee Community Village, Alsen, LA (ASILCV), Africatown, Mobile, AL (CHESS), Strain Road Community, Athens, AL (Athens NAACP), and Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans, LA, (Sankofa). The HBCUs Consortium schools supporting this community-university partnership project include: Texas Southern University, Dillard University, Jackson State University, Alabama A&M University, Florida A&M University, and Tennessee State University.

The urban and rural communities selected for this water justice initiatives have a range of shared experiences and infrastructure challenges: highway expansion development, flooding (stormwater management, subsidence, stormwater management, drainage, overflowing sewer and septic systems, loss of protection (levees, wetlands, green space), highway expansion and residential displacement, damage to homes, loss of use of property, legacy pollution, and social and environmental determinants of health, including mental stress.  

More attention needs to be directed to solving the flooding problem in Black communities that will be made worse by climate change.  Climate driven flood risks in the United States will increase by about 25 percent by 2050, and Black communities in the South and Gulf Coast will face a 40 percent increase in flood risk in places where at least one fifth of the population is Black. Redlined homes face 25 percent higher flooding risks than non-redlined homes. This is especially problematic since more than 58percent of redlined Black and other people of color neighborhoods suffer the greatest harm from major storms.

Climate vulnerability in the U.S. is greatest in the Deep South, whereover 57 percent of Black Americans now live. Decades of racial segregation relegated millions of Black Americans to living in neighborhoods that are more vulnerable to flooding. Our nation’s disadvantaged communities contain nearly twice as many at-risk infrastructure assets per capita as non-disadvantaged communities.  Black residents live in communities with the greatest number of at-risk infrastructure assets impacted by flooding compared to the national average. A large share of these glaring disparities observed today can be traced to Jim Crow segregation and structural racism.

Six years is a long time for a flooded out community to wait for justice. The Shiloh community is a poster child of "Highway Robbery,” the title of a book Dr. Bullard wrote two decades ago. HBCUs heard the cryand have stepped up to assist and support Black communities on the frontline of climate assaults. While we have made some progress in addressing impacts of harmful infrastructure projects, we still have a long way to go to address the climate gap that’s leaving too many Black people and Black communities behind.

About the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice

The Robert D. Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University was launched in 2021 to address long standing issues of systemic inequality and structural racism that cause disproportionate pain, suffering and death in Black and other people of color communities. The Bullard Center works to promote environmental, climate, economic, energy, transportation, food and water and health justice. Texas Southern University is a student-centered comprehensive doctoral university committed to ensuring equality, offering innovative programs that are responsive to its urban setting, and transforming diverse students into lifelong learners, engaged citizens, and creative leaders in their local, national, and global communities.

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