The Tell-It Report: To Trump administration, protecting Black communities from raw sewage is DEI

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division ended a settlement that would have improved wastewater treatment in a majority-Black county in Alabama.

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In Gullah Geechee communities, a "tell-it" was a designated lookout, community warning system and the most trusted source for news and information. The Tell-It Report is ContrabandCamp’s weekly roundup of the Black stories that deserve more attention — from politics to entertainment.

We saw yet another disappointing, but not surprising, series of fallouts from efforts to erase diversity, equity and inclusion. A Black history museum in Massachusetts lost a grant its leaders were counting on to hire staff; in Mississippi, libraries deleted their race and gender studies databases to comply with new state laws. And the Trump administration ended a settlement, which officials dubbed “illegal DEI,” meant to address the dangerous raw sewage crisis that low-income, Black communities in Alabama have been dealing with for decades.

Despite all this heaviness, some good news: a 25-year-old Black infantry officer, Gabrielle White, made history. She undertook the grueling three-day challenge that is the Army Ranger Competition and became the first woman to ever compete and finish.

More details on the stories you need to know:

Trump ends ‘illegal DEI’ settlement over raw sewage crisis in predominantly Black Alabama county

The Trump administration is terminating a settlement aimed at improving wastewater treatment services in a predominantly Black rural county in Alabama affected by raw sewage, Inside Climate News reports.

The announcement came last Friday, two years after the Biden administration reached a historic agreement to address the sewage crisis in Lowndes County, a region 30 miles southeast of Selma with a 72% Black population. It was the first time in U.S. history that federal civil rights laws targeted environmental racism directly. But the Trump administration have thwarted those efforts, minimizing the settlement to an “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy.”

“The DOJ will no longer push ‘environmental justice’ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “President Trump made it clear: Americans deserve a government committed to serving every individual with dignity and respect, and to expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest, not arbitrary criteria.”

Residents of Lowndes County have faced a sewage crisis for decades. They’ve dealt with broken and absent septic systems that led to raw sewage flooding homes, yards and streets, waste in drinking water and even health issues. In 2017, United Nations official Philip Alston found that 34% of the county’s population had contracted hookworm, according to the Alabama Reporter. Some tax-paying residents had even been fined and imprisoned for not installing or repairing septic tanks, despite the state’s negligence.

A 2012 lawsuit filed by Catherine Coleman Flowers, a Lowndes County native, found that as many as 80% of residents lacked reliable sewage services. Flowers and other residents’ complaints led to the 2023 settlement that set a historic precedent and gave them hope for an end to the rampant sewage problems.

The Trump administration brought an immediate end to that. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) told ABC News that the administration "has put its blatant disregard for the health of my constituents on full display.”

She said, “It was about addressing a public health crisis that has forced generations of children and families to endure the health hazards of living in proximity to raw sewage, as the DOJ itself documented.”

Dr. Scott Harris of the Alabama Department of Public Health said that it would continue its efforts to help install new septic systems in Lowndes County, but that work is dependent on federal and state funding.

“Resilient and sustainable sanitation is a problem in rural communities across the U.S.,” Flowers wrote in a statement. “The people of Lowndes County exposed this issue to the American public. I pray that today’s action means that this administration will make sanitation a priority for all who are affected throughout rural America.”

25-year-old Black soldier becomes the first woman to compete in Army Ranger competition

While a bunch of rich ladies were getting ready to take an Uber share ride to space, back here on Earth, 1st Lt. Gabrielle White was doing something no other woman had done before — competing in one of the most intense events in the military, the annual Best Ranger Competition.

The West Point graduate, along with her teammate Capt. Seth Deltenre, finished in 14th place overall in the three-day event that started on April 11 and ended on April 13 at Fort Benning in Georgia, according to the Associated Press.

The competition consists of 30 events, including helicopter missions, land navigation, weapon qualifications and a number of physical tests. The goal is for the two-person team to overcome “62 continuous hours of physically, emotionally, and intellectually demanding challenges,” the Association of the United States Army’s website reads. Soldiers get about four hours of rest each day. Out of 52 teams, 16 finished this year, CBS News reports.

Overall, 103 men participated. White was the only woman who competed.

White, a 25-year-old Black infantry officer, graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 2021 and became a ranger in 2022. She is one of 154 women to graduate from the Ranger School.

Female soldiers only became eligible to participate in the competition in 2015 when the Army opened the Ranger School up to women.

White’s historic feat comes as the Trump administration’s storm of anti-DEI legislation continues. Ahead of his confirmation in November, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said, “We should not have women in combat roles,” saying that women’s inclusion “has made fighting more complicated.”

As of Thursday, the Army made no official mention of White’s accomplishment. The Associated Press notes, “While in previous years the Army would likely have noted the historic first in a story or press release, that won’t happen this time.”

Regardless of whether or not the administration acknowledges her achievement, White broke a major barrier that deserves to be recognized and is probably making Hegseth eat his words.

Massachusetts Black history museum loses federal grant

The Museum of African American History in Massachusetts lost half a million dollars because of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI efforts.

Leaders at the museum learned last week that a three-year federal grant they recently received was terminated. The museum, which has locations in Boston and Nantucket, has a $3 million annual budget. The Institute of Museum and Library Services issued the museum a $500,000 grant, which was allocated for additional staffing, according to WGBH News.

The termination is a result of an executive order Trump issued targeting IMLS in March. The IMLS is a federal agency that provides funding to libraries and museums.

Museum president Noelle Trent told WGBH that she received a letter from IMLS — which placed about 70 of its workers on administrative leave on April 7 — saying that the grant no longer served its priorities and isn’t in the interest of the United States. Though the museum received the first installment of the grant, the news is prompting them to reexamine the budget over the next two years.

“This is a direct threat to us as an organization and to the hundreds of other organizations like us in the country,” she told the outlet. “What is being asked is to minimize and deprioritize African American history. If we do nothing about that, then who is the next group of people who gets to be potentially erased?”

Not all of the institutions awarded $8.5 million in grant money from the agency — including the Board of Library Commissioners, Zoo New England, local historical societies, and dozens of other organizations — received notification of cuts.

The Museum of African American History, which covers the 18th and 19th centuries, is a part of Boston’s Black Heritage Trail. The cuts make up 6% of its annual operating budget. The Boston Globe reports that museum officials have been working to secure alternate funding since January, but urgency for those efforts have increased.

“This will not deter us from the great work that we are doing,” Trent WGBH. “Myself, the staff, and the board, we remain resolute in our mission here at the museum and moving forward with that.”

Mississippi orders libraries to erase race and gender studies databases

Mississippi state libraries are deleting their academic research on race and gender studies.

According to a March 31 internal memo obtained by Mississippi Today, Mississippi Library Commission Executive Director Hulen Bivins confirmed the erasure of the two research collections on race and gender from the state-funded database — called MAGNOLIA — which is used by publicly funded schools, libraries, colleges and other state agencies.

“The deletion of these two databases shall be permanent until such time as when the legislature changes their position regarding the content of materials made available in Mississippi libraries,” Bivins wrote in the memo.

Though the memo didn’t cite which specific state laws prompted the deletion, Bivins told The Guardian, “We have had a reconsideration of everything with regard to what DOGE [is doing],” referring to the “Department of Government Efficiency,” a faux-agency run by Elon Musk, who was appointed by Trump.

Bivins said he got a tip earlier in the year that the two databases may violate state law.

The database on race included work on ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration and ideology. The gender studies database included content from 377 peer-reviewed journals, including work on gender equality, masculinity, post-feminism and gender identity.

The executive order Trump signed last month effectively dismantled the Institute of Library and Museum Services, which, as mentioned earlier, provides funding for libraries and museums. According to the American Library Association, the ILMS is “the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services.” With federal funding up in the air, library agencies across the country will need to rely on state funding, which means complying with state laws.

“It’s going to affect every state because every state is going to have to make their own decisions,” Bivins told The Guardian. “But what will happen is we’re not going to have the resources to help the people that are in the educational process or people’s business needs. If the library doesn’t have support, the library will have to close … If you don’t have libraries, if we defund across the board, we’re going to have a situation where who knows what’s going to happen.”