Washington Post Opinion: What the South needs after COVID-19: A New Reconstruction

RANDALL WOODFIN (BIRMINGHAM, AL); CHOKWE ANTAR LUMUMBA (JACKSON, MS); FRANK SCOTT, JR. (LITTLE ROCK, AR); STEVEN REED (MONTGOMERY, AL); and ADRIAN PERKINS (SHREVEPORT, LA), CONTRIBUTORS, WASHINGTON POST OPINION.

As we emerge from covid-19, we need a new Reconstruction. And we need to do it better than the first time around.

Few periods in U.S. history were more racked by suffering than the Civil War. A staggering 750,000 soldiers died in four years, as well as an estimated 50,000 civilians. Four million Black men and women suffered the brutality and agonizing indignities of slavery. Roughly 179,000Black men enlisted in the Union Army on behalf of their freedom, making up 10 percent of the force by the war’s end. Nearly 40,000 Black soldiers died for that cause, an estimated 66 percent of whom were never identified.

As African American mayors of five of the Southern cities where much of this carnage unfolded, we can only imagine the devastation. It was hell on earth.

Reconstruction, the 12-year period immediately following the Civil War, attempted to right some of the horrible injustices that marked life for Black people in the Confederacy. It endeavored to cope with incredible suffering and rebuild after four long, terrible years — to literally reconstruct the country.

Despite some success, the era ultimately failed to accomplish many of its objectives; Black men and women have struggled against oppression ever since. More to the point, our cities have suffered neglect for generations, the consequences of which have been made painfully obvious by the covid-19 crisis.

Covid-19 was not as calamitous as the Civil War, but it has wrought its own trauma. It has robbed our nation of nearly 600,000 lives, including thousands of residents of our collective cities. It has exposed racial inequities in health care, housing, transportation, infrastructure and our economy. It has destroyed businesses and ripped jobs from our communities, leaving people struggling to put food on the table. And families in urban and rural areas across the South have tried in vain to adapt to online learning without access to affordable, high-speed Internet.

While the pandemic exposed these woes, it did not create them.

They stem from decades of divestment in our communities as Washington sat idly by. Politicians at the national level have watched roads and bridges crumble; allowed subterranean infrastructure to fall into disrepair, leaving millions without clean, reliable drinking water; forced citizens to keep pace with utility rate increases to finance unaffordable, federally mandated consent decree projects; and failed to act as extreme weather resulting from climate change has exacerbated infrastructure problems.

We need a modern plan of reconstruction that addresses systemic inequities disproportionately affecting Black and rural Americans. And we need a plan that doesn't just kick-start our economy, but re-envisions it — creating well-paying jobs and opportunities for all Americans.

We need the Senate’s $35 billion clean drinking water bill and President Biden’s American Jobs Plan.

Take water infrastructure alone. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives Arkansas and Alabama C- infrastructure grades. Louisiana and Mississippi receive D+ scores. Louisiana’s drinking water infrastructure limps in with a D-. As many as 1,700 boil notices are issued in Louisiana every year. Last year Caldwell Parish had one boil notice that lasted 280 days. None of these notices were related to major storms.

In February, Shreveport’s nearly 200,000 residents endured a once-in-a-century deep freeze that burst water mains throughout the city, leaving residents without clean water for more than a week. Families had to boil water in crawfish pots to drink or brush their teeth and collect boxed drinking water at National Guard distribution points. Jackson’s 160,000 residents languished for nearly a month under similar conditions.

Meanwhile, extreme rain events have caused millions of gallons of backed-up sewage to spew into homes in Birmingham and Montgomery, and uncontrollable flooding in Little Rock. This is unacceptable.

The American Jobs Plan aims to invest $111 billion in drinking water infrastructure and an additional $50 billion in infrastructure resilience to ensure our investments can withstand the growing threat of extreme weather.

But water infrastructure only scrapes the surface of the disinvestment Southern cities have seen.

Across Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama, one-fifth of our populations live in households without Internet. This handicaps our states, creating a systemic disadvantage for families, entrepreneurs and especially school-age children.

Before the pandemic, an estimated 70 percent of teachers assigned homework requiring Internet access. That number has risen as classrooms have gone virtual, and more children will be left behind if we don’t invest now. The American Jobs Plan proposes a bold $100 billion investment in broadband infrastructure to ensure that every child has access to affordable, high-speed Internet.

We need Biden’s plan to build back stronger, smarter and more equitably, and to ensure our investments position future generations for success. Without it, our communities will remain vulnerable well beyond the current crisis.

Read the full Op-Ed here.