Daily Archives: February 12, 2021

Photo: African pygmy Ota Benga was displayed at the Bronx Zoo in 1906, in support of Darwinian theory, via Wikimedia Commons.

February is Black History Month, and this week, Friday, February 12, is Darwin Day the birthday of Charles Darwin. It is, therefore, quite appropriate to probe and ask, What exactly did Charles Darwin evolutions leading light believe about race? Was he a racist? Most of Darwins apologists say emphatically, No! Adrian Desmond and James Moore, for example, suggest that opposition to slavery was indeed Darwins sacred cause, and that his conviction that all humankind was linked together through common descent led to that fervent belief. Adam Gopnik inAngels and Ages(2009) states emphatically, Racism, in any form that would have been familiar in his time or would be familiar in ours, had no place either in Darwins life or in Darwins logic. But is this true? A careful examination of the facts suggests that when it comes to Darwin and race its, Three strikes, youre out!

First, although Darwin may indeed have opposed slavery, he did not believe in racial equality. In theDescent of Man(1871) he cited the work of his generations leading ethnologists J. Barnard Davis and Paul Broca in linking cranial capacity with racial and ethnic hierarchies. Darwin was quite clear on the matter; science demonstrated that craniometrics allowed for the ranking of intellect accordingly:

The belief that there exists in man some close relationship between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of skulls of savage and civilized races, of ancient and modern people, and by the analogy of the whole vertebrate series. Dr. J. Barnard Davis hasproved[emphasis added], by many careful measurements, that the mean internal capacity of the skull in Europeans is 92.3 cubic inches; in Americans 87.5; in Asians 87.1; and in Australians only 81.9 cubic inches.

Should there be any surprise, then, that Darwin would tell the Reverend Charles Kingsley in aletterdated February 6, 1862, It is very true what you say about the higher races of men, when high enough, replacing & clearing off the lower races. In 500 years how the Anglo-saxon race will have spread & exterminated whole nations; & in consequence how much the Human race, viewed as a unit, will have risen in rank. Or that he wouldwriteto William Graham on July 3, 1881, Remember what risks the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is. The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world. For Darwin, humans could be placed into definite racial categories with an Anglo-centric eye. Did Darwin really believe in the equality of all humankind: no. Strike one.

Did common descent translate for Darwin into racial equality the so-called brotherhood of man? Quite the contrary. For him, common descent also meant struggle for existence and so survival of the fittest could easily translate into racial superiority, national expansion, extermination of inferior peoples, and a view of human progress that was unmistakably racialized. Even his apologists, Desmond and Moore, are forced to admit inDarwins Sacred Cause(2009), Darwin ended up calibrating human rank no differently than the rest of his generation. After shunning talk of high and low in his youthful evolution notebooks, he had ceased to be unique or interesting on the subject. For Darwin common descent meant the evolutionary ascent of superior ethnic and racial groups over inferior ones. Strike two.

Finally, there is Darwins contribution to eugenics, a horrific abuse in the name of science that sought to improve humanity by selective breeding of societys best and the forced sterilization of societys worst people. One of Darwins most persistent defenders, historian Peter Bowler, insists inDarwin Deleted(2013), that eugenics was spawned by middle class fears of a rising tide of the unfit in later 19th- and early 20th-century society. Furthermore, he argues, It was eugenics that encouraged scientists to focus on heredity and recognize the potential of artificial selection, and they could have done this without the inspiration of Darwinism. It is true that eugenics certainly had a class-based element to it, but it is also true that eugenics was also seen as a form of racial hygiene leading toward a better society. Bowlers claim that eugenics could have been pursued without Darwin is doubtful. After all, it was Darwins own fascination with the domestic breeding of pigeons and livestock that formed the first chapter of hisOrigin of Species(1859) and this domestic breeding analogy he took to be the essence of natural selections creative power. Jean Gayon has argued convincingly inDarwins Struggle for Survival(1998)that his domestic breeding analogy was not merely a pedagogical tool or heuristic device but essential to the theory itself. But despite what Bowler argues, the link between Darwin and eugenics was made by leading eugenicists themselves, as when Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson write inApplied Eugenics(1918):

The science of eugenics is the natural result of the spread and acceptance of organic evolution, following the publication of Darwins workThe Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in 1859. It took a generation for his ideas to win the day; but then they revolutionized the intellectual life of the civilized world. Man came to realize that the course of nature is regular; that the observed sequence of events can be described in formulas which are called natural laws; he learned that he could achieve great results in plant and animal breeding by working in harmony with these laws. Then the question logically arose, Is not man himself subject to those same laws? Can he not use his knowledge of them to improve his own species, as he has been more or less consciously improving the plants and animals that were of most value to him, for many centuries?

So it would appear that efforts to distance Darwin from the odious designs of eugenics are contradicted by the statements of eugenicists themselves. Whatever Bowler may think of the matter, it is clear that Darwins theory was uppermost in these social manipulators minds when they contemplated the wonders to which eugenic principles could be applied. Strike three.

By any measure, when racial equality is being discussed, Darwin is clearlyoutof the running.

Editors note: Darwinism and its legacy for racial thinking are examined in John Wests multiple award-winning documentary Human Zoos:

Read more from the original source:

Darwin and Race: Three Strikes, He's Out - Discovery Institute

It's an issue that is forefront on the minds of many healthcare workers as the state works to vaccinate Georgians against COVID-19.

ATLANTA On Wednesday, Gov. Brian Kemp and Dr. Toomey partnered with Morehouse School of Medicine for a roundtable discussion focusing on "vaccine hesitancy and equity among minority communities" across the state.

It's an issue that is forefront on the minds of many healthcare workers as the state works to vaccinate Georgians against COVID-19. The event was held at 8:30 a.m.

Watch the roundtable on 11Alive's YouTube page.

There has been some hesitancy with the vaccine across the board, with just about half of Americans under 65 reporting in a December CDC survey that they would get the COVID-19 shots when they become eligible. While that's still considered low, that's up from 39% back in September.

The CDC says the groups most hesitant to get the shots are young adults, women and - especially - Black Americans.

There is a history of distrust amongst Blacks and the US medical field, after documented medical mistreatment. That's because America has a dark past of experimenting with unethical medical practices in Black communities.

Among those events is the Tuskegee Experiment, when, from 1932 to 1972, 600 Black men from Macon County, Alabama were unknowingly infected with syphilis. Doctors purposely did not tell the men the correct diagnosis, and instead withheld treatment so they could study the full progression of Syphilis.

Another example is the North Carolinas eugenics program. Between 1929 to the late 1970s, under the Eugenics Law, the state sterilized close to 7,600 poor men and women, most of whom were Black. That process made it impossible for them to have children.

The medical field is now working to re-build that trust with Black patients, tapping visible members of the Black community to demonstrate the safety of the COVID vaccine.

Excerpt from:

Gov. Kemp, Toomey participate in Morehouse School of Medicine roundtable on vaccine hesitancy - 11Alive.com WXIA

A year later, the Jewish peace group Never Again Action highlighted a difficult history not taught in most schools, while linking Amazons practices directly to the tech industrys record of supporting human rights abuses. In a 2019 protest of the companys actions, the group organized a march from a Holocaust memorial in Boston to the Amazon offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[W]eve seen this before, said protester Ben Lorber, I had ancestors killed in the Holocaust.

As a relatively new tech company, Amazon is at a crossroads. Will the company travel down a familiar road taken by other tech behemoths who turned a blind eye to human rights and workers rights? Or will it opt for the unfamiliar path, refusing to sell its technology and services in support of human rights abuses while also taking a strong, affirmative stance for better workplace conditions and greater diversity within its ranks? In large measure, this decision will fall to the incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Lorber and many others are pleading and protesting for the road less travelled.

In the spring of 2020, bowing to pressure from its rivals IBM and Microsoft, Amazon announced it would cease selling Rekognition to law enforcement agencies, but only for one year. The end of that year is coming up. In December, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, a large institutional shareholder, along with the Vermont State Treasurers Office, jointly filed a proposal calling on the worlds largest online retailer to curtail surveillance technologies like Rekognition.

But that investor proposal went further, asking Amazon to curb hate speech, increase diversity and improve workplace conditions. It was eerily prescient. Only several weeks later, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol showed Amazon had provided a safe haven for white nationalists to spew hate, organize and even plan their attack. By the time the social media platform Parler, used by many white nationalist groups, was taken down from the Amazon Web Services cloud, the damage had already been done.

Meanwhile, workers at the company's warehouses continue to endure unjust labor practices. During a pandemic, when so many have turned to Amazon, these workers bear the brunt of increased demand without adequate protective equipment and working conditions to shield them from the virus. Many Amazon factory workers come from communities of color already ravaged by COVID-19.

Amazon has said it stands with the nationwide movement to identify and bring an end to systemic racism, yet it continues to face claims of racial discrimination, said a disappointed Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York state comptroller and trustee of the New York retirement fund.

Instead of welcoming this opportunity, Amazon appealed to the Securities and Exchange Commission to block these proposals from being voted on at its upcoming shareholder meeting. Its a strategic blunder and a tone-deaf response to attempts aimed at preventing the company from tragically following in the footsteps of another high-tech giant.

In the late 1920s, IBM, a newly minted company, and its audacious president, Thomas J. Watson Sr., threw its technological prowess behind the eugenics movement. Eugenics sought to further reproduction of blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned individuals the so-called Nordic stock while eliminating the bloodlines of undesirables such as Blacks, Jews, Native Americans, Hispanics, the Irish, Italians, mixed-race individuals, LGBTQ+ people and the mentally and physically ill.

A major 1926 study by the Eugenics Record Organization on the island of Jamaica was at risk because eugenicists had no way of tabulating and reporting on so-called pure blood Europeans and their mixed-race offspring, whom together numbered in the millions.

But IBM did.

IBM engineers worked with the Eugenics Record Organization, headquartered in Cold Springs Harbor, New York, to design punch card formats for collecting, sorting, tabulating, printing and storing information on racial characteristics, allowing the organization to declare the Jamaica study a success in 1929 and announce plans for another, similar global project.

Four years later, Watson and IBM brought automated racial classification to Hitler and the Third Reich. Nearly every aspect of the Holocaust and the Nazi war machine was supported by punch card technology, courtesy of IBM. Each concentration camp had an IBM room, where punch cards held prisoners fates, down to the means of their extermination firing squad, gas chamber, oven or being worked to death.

With Germanys defeat, IBM turned next to South Africa, automating most aspects of apartheid. The company even designed specialized equipment to print the Book of Life passbook,carried by white and Colored South Africans,and the dreaded national identification card, which Black South Africans were forced to show on penalty of arrest. Then, after apartheid, IBMs use of technology to circumvent human rights returned to American soil. In 2005, the company used secret CCTV footage of unwitting New Yorkers collected by the New York City Police Department to improve facial recognition technology in order to discriminate based on skin color.

So when protesters in Boston said they had seen this before, they were deliberately connecting Amazons present to IBMs past, pleading that Amazon not repeat the mistakes of a previous generation. Some shareholders understood this and took up that call as well.

Workers rights within high-tech firms bear a similar dark history. In 1970, Black employees organized the National Black Workers Alliance of IBM (BWA) to demand the company hire more Black people, promote Blacks workers more equitably, provide Black employees equal pay and withdraw from apartheid issues similar to those being demanded by Amazon shareholders today.

BWA leaders were targeted with poor performance evaluations, denial of pay raises, accusations of violating company policy by disclosing pay and promotion data and, in one case, false allegations of sexual abuse. Many were fired, demoted or forced to resign.

BWA was fighting systemic racism that still exists at Amazon and other high-tech firms, where a majority of board and senior decision-making positions are held by white men. Less than 3% of high-level positions at high-tech firms are held by people of color. And this is not a pipeline problem. Qualified candidates can be found, if high-tech firms can find the will.

On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board ruled against Amazon, allowing workers at a Bessemer, Alabama warehouse to vote on unionizing. The SEC should follow suit and insist that shareholder proposals are also brought to a vote.

Jeff Bezos may be stepping down as Amazons CEO, but the problems identified by workers, protesters and shareholders remain. Martin Luther King Jr. said, the time is always right to do right. Yet companies like Amazon seem to operate as though that time never arrives; that profits are always more important than people, even in the wake of George Floyds death and calls for racial equity, synagogue attacks, four years of official lies supporting racial hatred and division and an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. King said it best. Now is the right time for Amazon to do right.

Read more here:

Opinion | On human rights, Amazon is at a crossroads - Crosscut

From the right: Open Our Schools

Many liberals continually ignore the science that shows students can safely return to school, notes Wisconsin ex-Gov. Scott Walker at The Washington Times. The CDC confirmed that vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools, and plenty of teachers . . . are eager to be in the classroom, yet their union is blocking the way. Soaring enrollment at Catholic and private schools proves that parents understand that their children perform better with in-person instruction. Instead of letting the big government union bosses or liberal school administrators decide whats best for individual families, we should put the power in the hands of parents to make the right choice for their daughters and sons. It is time to open our schools.

At his Weekly Dish blog, Andrew Sullivan takes on the rising claims that the classics are inherently racist. He points to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s syllabus for a 1962 Morehouse College seminar, with Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine all the way up to John Stuart Mill. King grasped . . . the core meaning of a liberal education, the faith that ideas can transcend space and time and culture and race. But now comes a broadening movement in the academy to abolish or dismantle the classics because of their iniquitous whiteness. The main claim: Since racist and imperialist societies drew on these ideas, the classics are therefore fatally tainted. But: Thats like saying that science should no longer exist because some scientists once practiced eugenics.

With the impeachment of ex-President Donald Trump and a focus on Republican infighting, the propaganda media and the Democrats . . . want to keep the GOP crouched in a circular firing squad shooting at itself, warns former Speaker Newt Gingrich at Newsweek. Yet Republicans have every reason to be optimistic, with a much stronger position in state governments and excellent opportunities in 2022. And the party will remain largely unified and focused on creating more jobs, lowering taxes, increasing take-home pay, defending Americas interests around the world and developing solutions in health, learning, space and other areas that matter to our future. In the end, the Republican Party of entrepreneurship and hard work will defeat the Democratic Party of unemployment and redistribution.

As Jane Austen wryly wrote, a good memory is unpardonable and a bad memory is going to be absolutely crucial in the new administration, snarks Roger Kimball at Spectator USA. Perhaps the Big Tech wardens in charge of what we can see and hear and think will start censoring items such as the clip from a Democratic debate where Kamala Harris lit into her now-boss on the issue of busing. As California attorney general, she was not above concealing exculpatory evidence that might exonerate people on death row, but you wont see that in the Vogue cover stories of the new VP or in rapturous interviews with her on CNN. But the biggest challenge will be keeping which acts of violence are OK, indeed commendable, separate from those which are not OK and must be regarded as totally reprehensible.

At the Minneapolis Star Tribune, retired cop Kim Voss recalls the firebombing of her Third Precinct office during the George Floyd riots: While our leadership held us back and we remained unsupported by our state, our city and our police administration, our neighborhoods burned. We felt helpless. The department has now seen almost one-third of its sworn personnel leave due to PTSD both diagnosed and undiagnosed. This is what happens when those in leadership disregard warning flags and stick their heads in the sand, leaving cops on the front lines to pay the price. Its tragic: If someone, anyone, in leadership from the city or the Police Department had reached out to us and talked to us as if they really cared about us, you would not be seeing one-third of our department leaving. That is a lot of experience walking away.

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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Open Our Schools and other commentary - New York Post

Matthew Denis|Register-Guard

The arts is an outward expression of an inner humanity. Not only does this exposition create a richer society, but it recognizes a peoples existence something thats been lacking for many outcasts to this countrys citizenry.

When I was going to school, I began to be bugged by the teaching of American history because it seemed that that history had been taught without cognizance of my presence, iconic Black author James Baldwin said in 1964.

Historian Carter G. Woodson had the same frustration in 1926 when he set the foundation for what would become todays national Black History Month, observed each February.

As described by the U.S. State Department, Woodson was a 17-year-old untutored coal miner in 1909. At 19, he entered high school after teaching himself the fundamentals of English and arithmetic, mastering the four-year curriculum in less than two years. At 22, after almost a year at Berea College in Kentucky, Woodson returned to the coal shafts, studying Latin and Greek before and after hours laboring hundreds of feet below the earth. After earning a masters degree at the University of Chicago, Woodson went on to Harvard where he became the second Black American to receive a doctorate.

Woodson witnessed African Americans were seldom mentioned in this nations history a false narrative that led him and Jesse E. Moorland to found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to promote Black history and celebrate African American accomplishment. Towardthis mission, Woodson and the ASALH launched a Negro History Week in 1926, choosing the second week in February, to honor the birthdays of Frederick Douglass on Feb. 14 and Abraham Lincoln on Feb. 12.

After growing municipal acceptance, President Gerald Ford decreed Black History Month a national observance in 1976, the 50th anniversary of its founding, coinciding with Americas bicentennial.

This month, Matts Picks will honor Black History Month in pursuing inclusive, insightful culture coverage. This wont, however, exclude additional adventures and events in and around Eugene-Springfield. For a full listing of goings-ons, visit registerguard.com/events.

This Friday, American University Washington College of Law Professor Lia Eperson will present Are We Still Not Saved? Race, Democracy and Educational Inequality.

This collaborative effort combines the UO School of Laws Derrick Bell Lecture with the African American Workshop and Lecture Series, facilitated by the Division of Equity and Inclusion. Bell served as the first African American School of Law dean, from 1980 to 1985, and is still considered an influential voice examining society and culture as they connect to race, law, and power.

Epperson is a nationally recognized civil rights, constitutional law and education policy expert. Her scholarship centers on implications for educational equity by promoting a constitutional dialogue between federal courts and political branches.

The virtual presentation will take place via Zoom from noon to 1:15 p.m. Friday, Feb. 12. Epperson also will be meeting with students and faculty. Individuals must RSVP to attend the event. Registration and details at inclusion.uoregon.edu/bhm.

Also this Friday, ELF presents In Conversation with: Raffaella Falchi Macias: The Intersection of Visual Design and Cultural Arts: Carnaval Dance & Costume Making.

Macias is the artistic director and founder of the Sambax Dance Company and executive director of the Youth Art Exchange in San Francisco.

Maciass multicultural heritage inspired her interest in the visual and performing arts. She worked with the favela community of Manguinhos in Rio de Janeiro under the Brazilian architect Jorge Mario Jauregui and his Favela/Barrio project. Now, Eugene has an opportunity to her the woman who wears many hats and wears them well.

In Conversation With begins at noon Friday, Feb. 12 on Zoom. Free with registration; eplfoundation.org/events/in-conversation-with-experts-enthusiasts.

This Saturday and Sunday, the Fermata Ballet Collective will debut VIRTUAL, a dynamic and progressive body of works that will include choreography from artists Alaja Badalich and Caitlin Christopher in collaboration local with videographers.

This multifaceted streaming show will emphasize the diversity of expression within the Pacific Northwest dance community, highlighted by four original, reflective works that celebrate the growth collective members experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as introduce the Fermata Ballet Collective.

VIRTUAL shows at 6 p.m. Saturday Feb. 13 and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14 with a member Q&A following. Tickets $12; 541-972-3539 or fermataballetcollective.com.

Next Tuesday, the Wayne Morse Center for Law will host a panel that considers the enduring legacy of eugenics alongside the possibilities that genetic technologies now offer for understanding population histories, diverse and diasporic ancestries, and race- and gender-based health disparities.

Panelists include University of Michigan history and gender studies professor and author Alexandra Minna Stern and director for the Laboratory of Genetic Anthropology and Biocultural Studies at Vanderbilt University associate professor in Nashville, Tennessee.

The panel runs from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16. Free sign up required at calendar.uoregon.edu.

Link:

Matt's Picks: Black History Month events and more - The Register-Guard

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Feb. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Two writers who have delved into the past and present challenges facing treasured places on the Southeast coast will receive the 2021 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Awards from the Southern Environmental Law Center. SELC will present the awards March 25 during this year's Virginia Festival of the Book.

In the book category, former Georgia state legislator Paul Bolster will receive the Reed Award for Saving the Georgia Coast: A Political History of the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act. In the journalism category, Tony Bartelme of The Post and Courierin Charleston will receive the Reed Award for his in-depth reporting on South Carolina's coastal environment, including communities where the damaging impacts of climate change are happening now.

The featured speaker for the Reed Award presentation will be Lulu Miller, co-host of WNYC Studios' Radiolab and author of the widely acclaimed Why Fish Don't Exist, a nonfiction scientific thriller and memoir. The free, online event will be at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. To register to receive a link to the Zoom session, visit http://www.southernenvironment.org/reedaward/.

This Year's Book Award Winner: Paul Bolster

In Saving the Georgia Coast, published by the University of Georgia Press, Paul Bolster brings to life the unlikely coalition of local residents, wealthy landowners, hunters and anglers, garden club members, courageous politicians and others who came together more than 50 years ago to defend Georgia's unspoiled coastal marshlands. At the same time, he traces the intricate legislative maneuvers that resulted in passage of the 1970 Coastal Marshlands Protection Act, a law that remains the most comprehensive protection of marshlands along the Atlantic seaboard.

Bolster, who served a diverse Atlanta district in the Georgia House of Representatives for 12 years, does more than look back at this landmark legislative achievement. He also examines the policy challenges facing the Georgia coast today, among them how to address unrelenting development pressures and how to deal with rising sea levels and other impacts of a warming planet. He continues to follow environmental legislation in the state capitol and feels that lawmakers could look to the lessons from 50 years ago as a guide to protecting Georgia's fragile coast today.

A free-lance writer and historian, Bolster holds a Ph.D. degree in history from the University of Georgia and a law degree from Georgia State University School of Law. He taught American history at Clark Atlanta University for 14 years and has worked as a lobbyist for the Georgia Hospital Association and the American Hospital Association. A tireless advocate for affordable housing, he ran a Health Care for the Homeless program in Atlanta and served for three years on Governor Nathan Deal's Council on Criminal Justice Reform.

This Year's Journalism Award Winner: Tony Bartelme

Tony Bartelme, aspecial projects reporter for The Post and Courier, is being recognized in part for his stories from the Rising Waters Project, a series documenting how the accelerating forces of climate change are affecting Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry. Bartelme explains not only the science behind wetter hurricanes, intense "rain bomb" events and flooding high tides, but also the policy issues they raise and how they are making life harder for many South Carolinians. In other pieces recognized by this year's award, Bartelme displays a gift for linking science with sense of place. These include a story tracing the human and natural history of South Carolina's Santee Delta, and another on the quest by researchers to learn more about an elusive and rapidly disappearing marshland bird, the eastern black rail.

A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Bartelme is a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has won some of the highest honors in journalism. He was awarded a prestigious Harvard University Nieman Fellowship in 2010. His investigative reporting has exposed government corruption and has explored subjects ranging from changes in ocean plankton to the global shortage of doctors. His latest book, A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa, was published by Beacon Press.

This Year's Featured Speaker: Lulu Miller

Lulu Miller is a Peabody Award-winning science journalist who fell hard for radio when she joined the staff of WNYC Studios' Radiolab, initially as a volunteer. She returned to the show as co-host this past year. She is also co-founder ofNPR'sInvisibilia, a show about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. Her book Why Fish Don't Exist has been hailed as a wondrous debut and was listed among the best books of 2020 by The Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Tribune and Smithsonian. It follows the life of taxonomist David Starr Jordanthe first president of Stanford University and a proponent of the eugenics movementand reveals both the triumphs and the dark side of his relentless search for order in a chaotic world. Her book is also a deeply personal story about how to go on when everything seems lost. Miller is a graduate of Swarthmore College and earned an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Virginia.

About the Reed Environmental Writing Award

SELC's Reed Environmental Writing Award is named for the late Phillip D. Reed, a successful attorney, a committed environmental advocate, and a founding trustee of the Southern Environmental Law Center. Reed believed deeply in the power of writing to raise awareness of environmental issues and the forces that threaten natural treasures and special places.

Selected by a distinguished panel of judges, Reed Award winners have recently included New York Times opinion writer Margaret Renkl for her book Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss; Megan Mayhew Bergman, director of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference at Middlebury College; Earl Swift for his book Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island; J. Drew Lanham, author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature; Janisse Ray, author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood; and science writer Deborah Cramer, whose work has also won honors from the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Academy of Sciences.

About Southern Environmental Law Center: For more than 30 years, the Southern Environmental Law Center has used the power of the law to champion the environment of the Southeast. With more than 80 attorneys and nine offices across the region, SELC is widely recognized as the Southeast's foremost environmental organization and regional leader. SELC works on a full range of environmental issues to protect our natural resources and the health and well-being of all the people in our region. http://www.SouthernEnvironment.org

SOURCE Southern Environmental Law Center

http://www.southernenvironment.org

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2021 Reed Awards Honor Great Writing About the Southeast's Fragile Coast - PRNewswire