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(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans will face dangerous heat this week, as a new heat wave is expected to bring near triple-digit temperatures to the South.
The Southeast and the Plains will experience temperatures between 10 and 20 degrees above average with humid conditions, according to the National Weather Service.
Heat wave continues in 27 states across the country
While the Northeast felt a reprieve from the heat this weekend, heat alerts were in effect on Sunday in the Upper Midwest, as temperatures in the Plains hit 100 degrees and higher.
Temperatures in Fargo, North Dakota, hit 102 degrees on Sunday, while North Platte, Nebraska, reached 100 degrees. Low humidity has kept heat indexes low in the Midwest, a far cry from last week’s “heat dome,” which caused the heat index in the region to reach 115 degrees.
Midwestern cities could hit their daily record highs by Monday afternoon.
The Central U.S. region will see highs in the 90s as the heat travels east but won’t see high heat index values because it won’t be very humid.
Millions of people in the Midwest will eventually see a break this week as the heat moves into the South, where cities such as Atlanta, Memphis and New Orleans will see temperatures hit close to 100 degrees.
Summer officially begins on Tuesday, and for the rest of the month, swaths of Central and southern parts of the U.S. are expected to see above-average temperatures.
More than 1,300 people die every year in the U.S because of extreme heat, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The excessive heat, coupled with strong winds and arid conditions, has sparked fears of wildfires in the West. The National Weather Service issued “red flag” warnings in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Price, Utah.
According to the NWS, “red flag” warnings occur when “warm temperatures, very low humidities and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger.”
While the potential for wildfires will dwindle in the next few days, the conditions will make it harder for firefighters to battle existing wildfires in the Southwest.
Due to the monsoon season, rain is expected over the next day in parts of the country that have experienced widespread drought and wildfires, such as Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, making the areas more susceptible to flash floods.
Historic flooding emergency in the Northern Rockies, high temperatures
Last week, Yellowstone National Park closed after historic flooding destroyed homes, washed out roads and left many people stranded.
(WASHINGTON) — A 15-year-old boy has died and three adults, including a police officer, were injured in a shooting in Washington, D.C., Sunday night, officials said.
The shooting took place near 14th and U streets Northwest, in a popular area filled with stores, restaurants and bars. The area played host to “Moechella,” a free concert celebrating Juneteenth.
The Metropolitan Police Department had reported an earlier, separate incident at the concert, when a fight was broken up, MPD Chief Robert Contee said.
Shortly after that, there was a secondary incident, Contee said, during which “people started to scatter” and some were “being trampled.” The MPD shut down the concert because it appeared it was “unsafe,” police said.
The incidents happened between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m., police said, at an unpermitted event associated with Moechella. Police said “hundreds of people” had gathered on the block, and the MPD assisted in containing the crowd to the sidewalk.
While rendering aid to people caught in the stampede, a firearm was recovered, Contee said.
According to the MPD, several people were shot in the wake of the previous incidents.
Police said the firearm used in the shooting has not been recovered, and there is no suspect in custody at this time.
The two adult victims and the police officer are recovering at an area hospital, police said.
The D.C. Police Union tweeted that one of its members had been shot, was transported to the hospital “and is in stable condition.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Washington Field Division said it was assisting the MPD.
ABC News’ Ben Siu contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — In a new twist in the Uvalde elementary school mass shooting, a source has confirmed to ABC News that as police waited for more than an hour in a hallway outside the classrooms where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers, none of the officers checked to see if the doors to the classrooms were locked.
The new development in the investigation of the shooting came just days after Chief Pete Arredondo of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police, the incident commander during the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, defended his actions and claimed the delay in breaching connecting classrooms 111 and 112, where the gunman was holed up was because he was waiting for a janitor to get the key to the door.
But surveillance footage showed that neither Arredondo nor any other officers taking cover in the hallway outside the classrooms ever attempted to open the door before receiving the keys to the two connecting classrooms. That means there were 77 minutes between when the alleged 18-year-old gunman entered the school through an unlocked door and when police fatally shot him, a source with knowledge of the investigation told ABC News.
The San Antonio Express News was the first to report on Saturday that Arredondo and his team allegedly never check the classroom doors to determine if they were unlocked.
The sources confirmed to ABC News that investigators now believe the alleged gunman, Salvador Ramos, could not have locked the doors to the classrooms from inside as officials first suspected. In the surveillance footage, the sources said, it appears Ramos, 18, was able to open the door to classroom 111 from the outside, the source said. That classroom is connected to the adjacent classroom 112 by a short corridor where a restroom is located, officials have previously said.
Whether the doors to the classrooms where the slayings occurred were unlocked through the entire episode remains under investigation.
In a June 6 interview with ABC News’ Amy Robach, Robb Elementary School teacher Arnulfo Reyes, who was wounded in the shooting that killed 11 of his students, said that prior to the rampage he complained to the school’s principal that the door to his room, 111, did not latch properly during security checks. He said the door was supposed to remain shut and lock automatically.
“When that would happen, I would tell my principal, ‘Hey, I’m going to get in trouble again, they’re going to come and tell you that I left my door unlocked, which I didn’t,'” Reyes said in the interview. “But the latch was stuck. So, it was just an easy fix.”
In an interview with the Texas Tribune published June 9, Arredondo, who was recently sworn in as a Uvalde City Council member, said he spent more than an hour in the school hallway calling for tactical gear, a sniper and keys to get inside the classroom.
He claimed he and multiple officers with him in the hallway took cover away from the classroom doors for 40 minutes to avoid being struck by bullets the suspect, armed with an AR-15 style rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, fired through the door.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said three Uvalde police officers who initially ran into the school to confront the gunman were fired on through the door and two suffered graze wounds.
Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies in the area converged on the school and began evacuating children from other classrooms and away from the two rooms where the gunman was holed up. Video and photos from the scene, showed children being pulled through broken windows and running out of harm’s way.
Arredondo claimed in the interview with the Texas Tribune that a custodian finally brought him a large key ring with dozens of the keys attached but none worked. Sources familiar with the investigation claimed that while searching for a master key, Arredondo tried the janitor’s keys on a door out of harm’s way on a nearby classroom.
While Arredondo waited for the keys and a tactical team to gear up and reach the scene, students and teachers trapped in the classrooms with the gunman made at least seven desperate 911 calls asking for help.
Arredondo told the Texas Tribune that he didn’t bring his radios with him to the scene, claiming time was of the essence and that he wanted to have his hands free.
“The only thing that was important to me at this time was to save as many teachers and children as possible,” Arredondo told the Texas Tribune.
Sources told ABC News that Arredondo is not cooperating with investigators probing the shooting. Arredondo has denied he has been uncooperative.
Arredondo and police involved in the response to the deadly emergency have come under intense scrutiny as the investigation has unfolded and video surfaced showing panicked parents being held back by police officers from entering the school to take matters into their own hands, including a father who officers deployed a stun gun on and a mother who was handcuffed.
Police investigators and elected leaders, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, have also been the subject of scorn over how the official narrative of the rampage has dramatically changed as the investigation has unfolded.
In the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde rampage, Abbott praised the “amazing courage” of law enforcement, saying the incident “could have been worse” if the officers hadn’t run toward the gunfire and eliminated the shooter. But one day later, Victor Escalon, the South Texas regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, contradicted Abbott’s statement, saying, no schools officer was at the campus when the gunman, who had already shot and wounded his grandmother, crashed a truck in front of the school and entered the school buildings unabated through an unlocked door after getting onto campus by climbing a fence.
Abbott later said he was misled on the police response.
Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, initially said the door the gunman used to access the school building was left propped open by a teacher. But officials later said the investigation showed the teacher closed the door, but the door did not automatically lock as it was supposed to.
The timeline on how quickly police responded to the shooting has also changed several times, from a rapid response to about 40 minutes, to eventually 77 minutes before a SWAT team entered the classroom where the shooter was located and killed him, authorities said.
The New York Times reported on Friday that a Uvalde police officer responding to initial reports of a shooting was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and had an opportunity to shoot the gunman outside the school but hesitated out of concern he could have hit a student with an errant shot. Law enforcement sources have confirmed that scenario to ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — Opal Lee, 95, has spent much of her life advocating for civil rights. When she was just 12, her family home was vandalized and set ablaze by white supremacists, none of whom were arrested.
It led her down a lifetime of trying to force the nation to pay respect to those impacted, oppressed or killed by racism throughout U.S. history. Each year on Juneteenth, she and her family in Texas go on a picnic and celebrate the day in 1865 when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.
In 2016, Lee went to Washington, D.C., and led a 2.5-mile march to symbolize the 2.5 years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to be enforced in Texas, and to free the final enslaved Black people.
The joyous day, filled with love and comradery in the Black community, was one she wanted to turn into a federal holiday.
Social activism can take many forms: protests, petitions, boycotts — but for some, joy can be also a revolutionary tool against systems of oppression. Black joy, as an act of resistance against white supremacy, takes center stage on Juneteenth.
Lee’s grandaughter, Dione Sims, who is also a civil rights advocate, has been helping her in the fight and says joy is key to bringing the movement forward.
“Folks usually think that to be an activist, you have to be negative in protesting and marching and, but when you come together and you celebrate and you commemorate Juneteenth, it is a form of social awareness,” Sims told ABC News.
“It is a show of support, not just for the African American community, but the fact that Juneteenth represents freedom for all,” she said.
In 2021, Lee and Sims stood with President Joe Biden when he officially made the commemorative day a federally recognized holiday.
“You know when you smile a lot and your cheekbones hurt? That’s how it was that day, because I’m just smiling, seeing her having a dream fulfilled,” Sims said. “A lot of times we have dreams, and we don’t get to see the culmination of it until maybe after a person has passed on.”
Shaonta’ Allen, a sociology professor at Dartmouth University, says that joy is the opposition to widespread anti-Blackness and racism seen in the U.S. It’s inherently resistant to oppressive forces, she says.
“When Black communities and Black individuals decide to identify for themselves and provide value in Blackness, when everything around them tells them that they should not value blackness – That’s where we see that opposition to this widespread racism and inequality,” Allen said.
She said Juneteenth, as well as June’s Pride month and other heritage month celebrations, are great examples of celebrating as a form of protest.
“We see other communities, intentionally drawing on self validation, self valuation, self definition, rather than more dominant notions of what their community is and how their communities should be viewed,” Allen said.
In celebrating the vibrancy and comradery of Juneteenth, Black communities refuse to accept suffering against oppression.
For Sims, joy has been a motivating factor in continuing Lee’s legacy. She said it’s what helps keep activists going.
“Black freedom and Black emancipation in America is definitely something that Black communities are excited about and have been, but we also celebrate with caution, because we know that there’s still a lot of work to do to,” Lee said.
(NEW YORK) — While most Americans prepare to celebrate the country’s freedom on July 4, many Black people in the United States recognize June 19 as their Independence Day.
The day widely known as Juneteenth, and referred to as Jubilee Day or Black Independence Day, is a significant date in Black history. It marks the day when the last enslaved African Americans found out about their freedom.
The news was delivered to Black people in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which lawfully marked the end of slavery for those of the Southern Confederate states.
ABC News caught up with prominent African Americans in the fields of film, music and media during the Bounce Trumpet Awards on April 23, 2022, and asked about how Juneteenth has played a role in their lives. The awards telecast will air on June 19.
“Our people are great and we started with nothing and came into something,” Emmy Award-winning actor Courtney B. Vance told ABC News. “Yes, things may be difficult now, but when you go past the first Google page and just look and see what our people had to deal with and still they rose. Everywhere they looked was a no. Everywhere they looked was darkness.”
The “61st Street” actor, who has also won a Tony Award, said he appreciates the opportunity to educate, especially young children, about his ancestors’ greatness and adversity. “It’s a message for us all that sometimes life is difficult and it’s going to be trial. But if we just press on, there will be a victory.”
With Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black woman to hold the second-highest office in the executive branch, by his side, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law last year, on June 17, 2021. But the African American community had been celebrating long before Juneteenth was made a federal holiday.
Essence Magazine CEO Caroline Wanga, a woman of Kenyan descent, emphasized the creation of Juneteenth as a celebration borne out of the struggle Black people face. During the Bounce Trumpet Awards celebrating Black humanitarians, she posed a question of reflection to the Black community.
“If you think about how long it took for Juneteenth to happen, then what are the things that you currently aren’t celebrating that you should be that are already yours, that you don’t know about?”
In addition to the usual music and food festivals and gatherings, Wanga suggests a different way to celebrate.
“That’s what I would love people to spend Juneteenth doing, is recognizing that that holiday was about the last of us finding out that we were freer than we thought,” she said. “What I want us to do is never have to do Juneteenth again and celebrate all the things that are true about us that are already here right now that we just don’t know about. Go Google something and celebrate that on Juneteenth.”
The country’s delayed acknowledgement of what has long been an erased part of American history encourages Black people to research and educate themselves on unknown facts about their ancestry.
Naomi Raine, a member of the Grammy-winning gospel group Maverick City Music, plans to commemorate the holiday by opening up honest conversations with her children.
“I think everybody’s kind of evolving how they’re celebrating this holiday because some of it is just coming to light for many of us,” Raine told ABC News. “Now, it’s more about educating my children and letting them know the roots of our nation and talking about how freedom is for everybody.”
With the many in-person celebrations taking place all across the country this year, some artists do plan to go out and take part in traditional festivities. Rising soul singer Jordan Hawkins, a North Carolina native, says he looks forward to attending the Juneteenth music and arts festival in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park on June 18, which will feature more than 300 Black-owned businesses.
Juneteenth serves as a reminder of the decades-long fight for equity and equality of African Americans. And while the fight to fulfill America’s promise to all continues, Vance offers another message of hope: “I think we’re going to succeed. We’re going to push through.”
(ATLANTA) — Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna were hit with gang-related charges in a case that sent shock waves through the music industry and spotlighted the controversial use of rap lyrics as evidence in court.
“[Young Thug] came out of a very desperate situation,” Atlanta rapper and activist Killer Mike told “Good Morning America.”
“The side of town he comes from — Cleveland Avenue, southeast Atlanta — has been wrought with poverty forever … he managed to escape the streets using rap lyrics, and he’s managed to help people change their lives.”
But now some of those lyrics have been named in a sweeping 56-count grand jury indictment in Fulton County, Georgia.
Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffrey Williams, and Gunna, who name is Sergio Kitchens, were each charged with one count of conspiring to violate the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) act and have entered not guilty pleas.
Young Thug is also charged with an additional count of participating in street gang activity, according to charging documents obtained by ABC News.
Top music executives launched a Change.org petition this week, calling for the protection of Black art and legislation that addresses the criminalization of rap lyrics.
“Today in courtrooms across America, Black creativity and artistry is being criminalized,” wrote 300 Entertainment CEO Kevin Liles. “With increasing and troubling frequency, prosecutors are attempting to use rap lyrics as confessions. This practice isn’t just a violation of First Amendment protections for speech and creative expression. It punishes already marginalized communities and silences their stories of family, struggle, survival, and triumph.”
Killer Mike, whose real name is Michael Render, is a longtime advocate against the use of rap lyrics in court. He said it’s important to remember that hip-hop is a form of entertainment and artists are performers who play characters.
“Young Thug — that’s a character that Jeffrey Williams created … but Jeffrey Williams is a father,” he said. “He’s a human being that’s capable of love, care and compassion.”
Erik Nielson, the author of “Rap on Trial,” told “GMA” he has advised and testified in close to 100 cases around the country in which rap lyrics were used as evidence in court — a practice that often targets amateur local rappers.
“I was surprised that prosecutors were brazen enough to go after somebody as well known as Young Thug,” Nielson said.” “But I was also surprised at the extent to which lyrics seem to be part of the prosecution as part of their early argument that he is involved in criminal activity.” .
Young Thug was among 28 people listed allegedly associated with the Atlanta-based Young Slime Life (YSL) gang, which authorities say he co-founded in 2012. YSL is also the name of Young Thug’s record label, Young Stoner Life, to which Gunna is also signed. It is an imprint of 300 Entertainment and is not named in the indictment.
Court documents detail instances where individuals allegedly associated with the YSL gang wore or displayed symbols of “YSL” in music videos posted on social media between 2016 and 2021 and rapped lyrics that mention “YSL” and/or various descriptions of criminal activity.
“These lyrics are no more than braggadocio rap lyrics,” Killer Mike said. “It is no more than Killer Mike saying I’m a killer on the mic.”
Prosecutors allege that YSL is responsible for three murders, including the 2015 killing of Donovan Thomas — an incident that they claimed “triggered” additional gang-related killings in the city.
Young Thug, a Grammy-winning rapper, is accused of various crimes, including theft and possession of illicit drugs with intent to distribute.
“Mr. Williams has committed no violation of law, whatsoever. We will fight this case ethically, legally and zealously. Mr. Williams will be cleared,” Young Thug’s attorney Brian Steel told ABC News.
“Mr. Sergio Kitchens, known as Gunna, is innocent. The indictment falsely portrays his music as part of criminal conspiracy,” the rapper’s attorneys, Steve Sadow and Don Samuel, told ABC News.
“It is intensely problematic that the State relies on song lyrics as part of its allegations. These lyrics are an artist’s creative expression and not a literal recounting of facts and circumstances,” the attorneys said in a court filing obtained by ABC News.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis defended including the lyrics in the indictment.
“The First Amendment does not protect people from prosecutors using [lyrics] as evidence,” she said at a May 10 press conference when asked about First Amendment concerns. “We put it as overt within the RICO count because we believe that’s exactly what it is.” ABC News has reached out to the DA’s office for further comment.
Nielson, a liberal arts professor at the University of Richmond, claims hip-hop music is the only genre that is targeted in courtrooms in this way.
“Rap music is the only fictional form — musical or otherwise, that is targeted this way in the courts,” Nielson said.
“It’s absolutely racist,” he added. “… essentially what’s happening is rap music is being denied the status of art.”
Killer Mike, who wrote the foreword to “Rap on Trial,” said that targeting Black art speaks to the dehumanization of Black people in America.
“Hip hop is not respected as an art because Black people in this country are not recognized as full human beings,” he said.
“… If we allow the courts to prosecute these men based on characters they created and stories of pretend that they tell in rhyme then next, they’ll be at your door.”
Young Thug and Gunna were both denied bond and their trials are set for January 2023.
(NEW YORK) — Over a million pounds of baby formula is set to ship into the United States sometime next month, the Food and Drug Administration announced Friday.
Approximately 750,000 cans of Danone formula — equivalent to 1.3 million pounds of formula or roughly 19 million 8-ounce bottles — will be imported from the company’s facility in Ireland and is expected to be sold at major retailers in July.
The batch will be Aptamil First Infant Milk Stage 1, which is a formula for most healthy babies. The formula may not be suitable for infants who are born prematurely, those at risk for iron deficiencies or who have a low birth weight, the agency warned.
The import is part of the Biden administration’s ongoing “Operation Fly Formula” to address a nationwide shortage of baby formula that has left parents scrambling to find available stock in stores.
Vice President Kamala Harris greeted the latest shipment on Friday at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. The shipment included the equivalent of 200,000 8-ounce bottles of Kendamil formula flown by United Airlines from the United Kingdom.
“Let’s be clear, this really is about what should be one of the highest purposes for any one of us, which is to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our children, the children of our country,” Harris said in remarks delivered at the airport.
The administration, which faced criticism for its response to the shortage, invoked the Defense Production Act to ramp up domestic production and expanded access to baby formula for recipients of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (also known as WIC).
“There’s no doubt there’s more work to do,” Harris said, adding: “We have seen progress, but the work that we need to do is to continue to move the formula as quickly as possible and get it on the shelves.”
This weekend, three more flights carrying Kendamil infant formula will arrive at Dulles International Airport. Once it arrives, Kendamil products are transferred to Target and made available to their stores nationwide.
The FDA said by June 19, “Operation Fly Formula” flights will have brought nearly 13 million 8-ounce bottle equivalents of formula to the U.S.
As flights continue to arrive, production at Abbott Nutrition’s baby formula plant in Michigan has once again halted due to flooding in the area after severe storms.
Abbott’s plant was closed for nearly four months due to contamination concerns. The shuttering of the site and Abbott’s voluntary recall of products exacerbated the shortages.
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said he’s been in contact with Abbott CEO Robert Ford and the two have a “shared desire to get the facility up and running again as quickly as possible.”
In a statement, Abbott said the latest shutdown “will likely delay production and distribution of new product for a few weeks.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — A Uvalde police officer had the opportunity to shoot the gunman before he entered the school, but did not take the shot for fear of hitting children, according to an official briefed on the investigation. The officer was armed with a AR-15-style rifle.
The officer who arrived with a rifle only had seconds to make the decision and feared he would hit children with his weapon, according to the official. The account was first reported by the New York Times.
The decision is the second missed opportunity for officers who were responding to reports of a gunman outside Robb Elementary School.
A Uvalde school district police force officer had arrived on the scene while the gunman was still outside, but drove past him, not seeing him in the parking lot.
Additional details on the investigation into the Uvalde school shooting are expected to be released next week. Two teachers and 19 students were killed after a gunman walked into the school through an unlocked door and opened fire.
Officials revealed it took 77 minutes from the moment the gunman entered the school to the moment he was shot and killed by Border Patrol officers.
Police response to the shooting is currently being investigated by the Texas Rangers, the U.S. Department of Justice and a special committee of the Texas legislature.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin and Alyssa Pone contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Buffalo, New York, has one of the country’s largest Juneteenth celebrations outside of Texas, according to event organizers.
Each year on June 19, the community comes together to honor the day that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free, about 2 1/2 years after they were legally freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
However, this year, the celebration of freedom in the U.S. means much more to this city.
Buffalo is grieving following a mass shooting by an alleged white supremacist at a Tops supermarket that left 10 Black people dead and another three people wounded on May 14.
Authorities have called the attack a racially motivated hate crime.
The alleged shooter ranted in a 180-page document detailing the racist motivations behind the mass shooting, saying that he targeted the area because of its predominantly Black population.
Jomo Akono, who helps organize the Juneteenth celebration, said the suspect drove past his house to get to the supermarket that day. In this tight-knit community, everyone felt the weight of the attack.
“Many of the people in our community have direct or one or two degrees of separation from someone who was injured or killed or inside of the facility — someone who survived being shot at,” said Akono. “They have the mental and emotional scars.”
This year, Buffalo residents are taking this moment of grief and heartache and using Juneteenth as a way to remind the world that racial injustice is not over in this country.
The weekend-long festival is being dedicated to all of the victims affected by the tragedy and their families, and there will be a place of silence near the festival for people to relax, reflect on the tragedy and honor the victims, organizers said.
The event organizers say there is a long way to go in the fight for racial justice — and Juneteenth is a chance to celebrate both how far the country has come and acknowledge how far it has to go.
“This will be a defining event that really displays our rich culture and history and shows that we are really a part of this American landscape in every which way imaginable,” said Jennifer Earle-Jones, president of Juneteenth Festival, Inc.’s board of directors.
The 47th Juneteenth Festival of Buffalo will aim to educate attendees about the past histories of the Black community in America — from slavery, to Jim Crow, to modern-day oppression via police brutality and systemic racism, according to organizers.
The recent mass shooting highlighted the growing threat of white supremacist violence in the U.S.
“Put May 14 as one of those traumatic forces against Black people here in America,” said Akono. “I feel optimistic that people are going to wake up and be more vigilant.”
He continued, “If everything was okay, why are we still fighting for voting rights? Why are we still talking about equal and respectful police protection?”
Though there will be plenty of discussion about ways to address racial injustice, organizers say they also want residents to revel in the love and joy of the community after years and months of facing such burdens.
“We want to be that communal place, where the village comes together again after the wolf is gone,” she added.
Event organizers say healing — not just in Buffalo, but the Black community as a whole — is a vital part of achieving racial justice. Residents need a break, they say, and the multigenerational love and community of the festival will satisfy that need.
Several generations of Buffalo residents will come together for a dayslong schedule of events including parades, parties, festivals and performances by local students, fraternities and sororities prepared just for this day.
“People have been crying for months and months,” Earle-Jones said. They want “people to come out and be able to laugh.”
(NEW YORK) — For Ebon’Nae Bradley, helping expectant parents is more than a job – it’s her mission. Bradley has been a licensed doula for more than a decade and has supported hundreds of mothers in their journeys to give birth.
“I always like to describe it as like a birth planner for your birth,” said Bradley, who is based in Dallas, of her role in the birthing process. “We sit with you and we really help you to see what the vision is for your birth. We help you find your power.”
The Mayo Clinic defines a doula as a professional labor assistant who provides both physical and emotional support during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period.
Black doulas like Bradley are helping mothers reclaim their child birthing processes by empowering them to make decisions around their own health care.
“When women reach out to me, especially Black women, the No. 1 thing, without fail, is fear. They’re afraid,” Bradley told ABC’s Janai Norman.
She said she’s seen that some doctors worry about statistical risks and sometimes will dismiss a woman’s concerns rather than listen to them.
“Doctors in general, most of them kind of tend to look at birth as something they want to manage,” said Bradley. “Birth is not by the book.”
According to a 2013 study from the Journal of Perinatal Education, mothers who are “socially disadvantaged” were two times less likely to experience a birth complication while using a doula.
Dr. Joia Crear-Perry is a retired OB-GYN and leading specialist on maternal mortality among Black mothers. She said race, gender and socio-economic status matter during childbirth.
“We know that the consequences of racism, sexism, gender oppression are causing us to die within childbirth,” said Crear-Perry. “We have never invested in people who are the most marginalized. Our health care system was created to ensure that people who have resources are able to get things.”
Non-Hispanic, Black mothers are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than their white and Hispanic counterparts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Bradley often partners with licensed midwives like Kennasha Jones and Tereé Fruga, who are medically trained to deliver babies in most settings, including the hospital, birthing centers, or in homes.
“Midwifery care is not just about caring for her body. We’re caring for the whole woman,” said Jones. “We want to know what your mental state is. We want to know what your emotions are like.”
A 2018 study found that states with more robust midwifery services reported better maternal care and better birthing outcomes, suggesting that states that have better resources dedicated to health care have better results, according to a study published in the journal PLOS One.
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate when compared to other industrialized nations, some of which use midwives at much higher rates than in the U.S., according to The Commonwealth Fund. The World Health Organization recommends midwifery care as an evidence based approach to reducing these deaths.
Bradley, Jones and Fruga were recently providing collaborative care for Justina Arrington, a mother of two with a third child on the way, in Arlington, Texas.
Arrington said that her first birth was a “traumatic” experience for her. Her prenatal records showed that her baby started showing signs of fetal distress and doctors said she would need an emergency cesarean section.
“It was just it was real tiresome and it was very traumatic, especially when I found out my doctor, that I had been working with the entire time, he was not going to be there,” said Arrington, who said she opted to undergo another C-section for her second pregnancy after her doctors warned she could be in labor for days.
In 2020, the CDC reported that about 1 out of every 3 deliveries in the United States were C-sections.
Arrington said that recovery from her two C-sections was painful. She said when she found out she was pregnant for a third time, she and her husband were determined to have a vaginal birth at home.
According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, planned home birth is associated with more than two times increased risk of perinatal death and three times increased risk of seizures or serious neurological dysfunction in newborns. Only 1 percent of women in the U.S. opt to give birth at home.
But advocates like the Midwives Alliance of North America say these statistics are too generalized and do not take into account the option for midwifery or a doula in the home or the outcomes for low risk pregnancies.
Arrington was at higher risk than most. Medical organizations recommend a hospital setting for vaginal birth after C-sections, instead of at home, to allow for quick access to emergency medical care if it’s needed.
Fruga says her organization tries to take as many precautions as possible to ensure a healthy delivery.
“First thing we do is we have to get the previous records from her C-sections. We have to make sure that the surgery was done in a manner that is safe for her to try an out-of-hospital birth. And once we do that, then we go about preparing her prenatal,” said Fruga, who also makes sure that the patient is close to a hospital in the event more medical care is needed.
With the help of Fruga, Bradley and Jones, after six and a half hours in labor, in a birth pool in her home, Arrington successfully gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
“Just to be able to find a team that was willing to take me on, that was willing to give me all the information that I needed, it’s a big relief and it’s just a big feeling of like, ‘Wow, I did it,’” said Arrington. “Just knowing that I was able to have her naturally it just feels different, you know?”
Often doula care can become pricey. Only six states currently provide Medicaid reimbursement for doula services and several more states have recently passed legislation or are considering adding doula coverage to Medicaid programs, according to the National Health Law Program.
But licensed midwifery care is often more covered by insurers. ABC News reached out to three of some of the largest insurance carriers here in the U.S: United Healthcare, Cigna and Aetna. All offer some coverage for certified midwifery care.
Crear-Perry said the investment is worth it.
“We’re all deserving of justice and joy. So if we invested in health as a right, we would have nobody in this country that doesn’t have access to whatever kind of birth that they want,” said Crear-Perry.
In the meantime, Bradley said her practice has been compelled to offer alternative payment methods like scholarships to help extend access to care. While some of her colleagues, she said, will get creative with how they’re compensated.
“Another thing that some doulas do is barter. So you have moms who are incredibly talented and resourceful. They may be photographers; they may be hairstylists. And it’s like, ‘Well, okay, I’ll braid your hair for a few months in exchange for my doula care,’” said Bradley.
Bradley says she is seeing more and more women who are informed and empowered to speak up and seek help.
“We’re here on the ground doing the work, helping,” she said. “What we see is healthy birth outcomes. We see healthy mamas, healthy babies and all because they had doula support, midwifery care and just love.”
