Chicago NGO Hopes For Racial Justice Through Solar Panels

Chicago NGO Hopes For Racial Justice Through Solar Panels

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Many Black communities continue to face problems that often seem insurmountable: high incarceration rates, poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, underemployment and many other barriers. 

Blacks in Green is a Chicago-based organization that aims to solve many of those problems through creating green, self-sustaining, mixed-income, walkable-neighborhoods for the communities that are most affected by environmental degradation. 


The group is working with a solar design company to recruit and train people who struggle with employment. Founder and President Naomi Davis hopes that solar panel installation and other green projects will give a new lease on life to those who’ve been to prison, haven’t finished school or live in low-income areas. 

We discuss one of the organization’s latest projects to install solar panels in black communities to ease electric bills.

GUEST:

Naomi Davis, founder and president of Blacks in Green