They’re Letting Us Rot: Trump Admin Ends Civil Rights Settlement in Alabama’s Black Belt
Racial Terrorism
Let’s call this what it is: an act of environmental racism—sanctioned by the federal government, weaponized by Donald Trump, and executed through the Department of Justice.
On April 11, 2025, the Trump administration terminated a landmark civil rights settlement that was finally beginning to address one of the most appalling public health failures in modern U.S. history. I’m talking about the raw sewage crisis in Lowndes County, Alabama—a majority Black, rural area where residents have lived for generations without adequate sanitation. Human waste runs in open trenches. Children grow up playing near sewage pits. People get sick. Parasites, infections, chronic illnesses—it’s all happening on U.S. soil.
But apparently, helping Black communities survive isn’t part of Trump’s second-term agenda.
Here’s the Background:
In 2023, under the Biden administration, the DOJ reached a historic civil rights agreement with the Alabama Department of Public Health. For the first time, a civil rights framework was used to address environmental injustice. The settlement required Alabama to improve wastewater systems, stop targeting Black residents with punitive code enforcement, and track public health data linked to sewage exposure.
It was a step toward dignity. Toward justice. Toward basic human rights.
Trump just killed it with the stroke of a pen.
The Excuse? “DEI.”
Trump’s Executive Order 14173 bans all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across federal agencies. In other words, any policy that explicitly acknowledges and attempts to fix racial disparities? Gone. And under that order, DOJ’s new leadership—Harmeet K. Dhillon, a longtime right-wing activist—just pulled the plug on the Lowndes County agreement. Not because the work was done. Not because conditions had improved. But because it dared to center Black lives.
This Wasn’t About Red Tape. It Was Retaliation.
Lowndes County is in Alabama’s Black Belt—a region named for its fertile soil, but made infamous by its brutal legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and now, environmental apartheid. Catherine Coleman Flowers, a native of the region and a MacArthur “Genius” grant winner, has been fighting this fight for decades. Her work led to the original investigation. Her outcry helped force the federal government to act.
And now Trump’s DOJ is spitting on it.
What Leaders Are Saying:
U.S. Representative Terri Sewell, whose district includes Lowndes County, condemned the DOJ’s decision:
“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,” Sewell said. She added that the Trump administration “has put its blatant disregard for the health of my constituents on full display.”
Catherine Coleman Flowers, the activist who brought national attention to Lowndes County’s sanitation crisis, emphasized the broader implications:
“I pray that today’s action means that this administration will make sanitation a priority for all who are affected throughout rural America,”
This is a Test Case. And We Can’t Let It Stand.
Lowndes County may be the first to lose its civil rights protection under Trump 2.0, but it won’t be the last. If they can kill a settlement like this—one with hard data, national attention, and federal oversight—what will they do to the rest of us?
If you are tired of watching marginalized communities be punished, poisoned, and ignored, now’s the time to act.
CALL TO ACTION:
Call your U.S. Senators and House Representatives—especially if they sit on the Judiciary or Environment committees. Demand congressional hearings on the termination of this civil rights settlement. Ask them to investigate DOJ’s retreat from environmental justice cases under EO 14173.
Support Catherine Coleman Flowers’ organization at https://www.creej.org/founder and amplify her work.
Share this story with your community. Talk about it. Post it. Podcast it. Make it impossible to ignore. Tag media in this post.
Donate to groups doing frontline work in Alabama, including Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice.
Vote like people’s lives depend on it. Because in places like Lowndes County, they do.
We’re not just watching injustice happen—we’re watching it be justified under the guise of anti-wokeness. That’s the new playbook: erase the language of equity, then erase the people who need it most.
But not on our watch. When we fight, we WIN.
Stay engaged . Stay loud. Stay in the fight.
I grew up in Alabama not far from Lowndes county. It's been an ongoing ordeal for the people in that community. Not only water issues but also food deserts, school inequality and extreme poverty. The state has always attempted to keep black people down and extract their "revenge" for the loss of slave labor....and what happened as soon as these folks got some relief from their gerrymandered maps? The entire redrawn districts went blue! But progress is feared by the maggats and of course they want to harm the people of Lowndes county to "Keep them humble" ... Fucking disgusting! Thank you Patricia for highlighting these issues. Everyone please donate to creej.org and keep the incredible black people of Alabama in your hearts. They are survivors of generations of hate and persecution and we can all learn from their bravery and strength.
There is no way on God's green earth to justify this, other than just pure evil. Who could be so small and loathsome? Now you know the answer.