THOMASVILLE, Ga. — As Earl Williams drove via a historic Black neighborhood often called Dewey Metropolis in his hometown, he hardly acknowledged what he noticed.
Houses that when belonged to buddies, household, and neighbors had siding lined in mould. Some had been boarded up. Others had holes of their roofs.
Black church buildings as soon as used Oquina Creek, which runs alongside the border of the neighborhood, to baptize their congregants. As we speak, fecal micro organism and different contaminants have made the water unsafe because of an ageing wastewater system.
“Generally you get the sensation such as you’re in a Third World nation,” Williams stated. After three many years in Washington, D.C., he returned 4 years in the past with a mission to revitalize communities corresponding to Dewey Metropolis, which he stated are “a part of what makes Thomasville, Thomasville.”
A $19.8 million Group Change Grant from the Environmental Safety Company was imagined to shift the tides of the neighborhood Williams grew up in.
The town and the Thomasville Community Development Corp., the place Williams previously served as group improvement director, applied for the grant in 2024. It was part of a $2 billion effort initiated under the Biden administration to assist deprived communities tackle environmental well being dangers and create clear vitality and local weather resiliency tasks.
However three months after profitable the grant, Thomasville turned considered one of 80 communities throughout the nation — from Hawai‘i to Alabama to Massachusetts — to see the funding stripped as priorities shifted in Donald Trump’s second presidency.
On the primary day of his second time period, Trump signed an government order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” It said that the Biden administration “compelled unlawful and immoral discrimination” via variety, fairness, and inclusion applications.
In an emailed assertion, EPA spokesperson Mike Bastasch stated the administration is “totally dedicated to being an incredible steward of taxpayer {dollars}.” He added that the “radical agenda” of DEI and environmental justice “preferencing” aren’t throughout the company’s core mission of defending human well being and the atmosphere.
Environmental well being advocates argue, although, that the choice to chop the grants was not rooted in science. They are saying that equating environmental justice to DEI is an act of dangerous religion and that withholding the cash forces disenfranchised communities to delay long-overdue updates wanted to guard public well being for marginalized populations.
“I sadly imagine we’re going to see a reversal within the well being profile of this nation,” stated Jalonne White-Newsome, an affiliate professor on the College of Michigan who served within the Biden administration as the primary federal chief environmental justice officer.
“This present federal regime has determined that humanity and public well being and justice don’t imply something,” she stated.
‘Why Us?’
Thomasville, close to Georgia’s southwestern border, is residence to simply over 18,600 folks.
The town had hoped to enhance well being outcomes in neighborhoods on its southern and western sides the place, in accordance with the grant proposal, “historic redlining created a legacy of disinvestment.”
These areas have a deep historical past: Dewey Metropolis, for instance, was the primary neighborhood within the metropolis the place Blacks might construct houses after the Civil Conflict. It’s additionally residence to the closed Douglass Excessive College — the primary public faculty for Blacks in Thomasville, established in 1902.
“This place has been uncared for,” stated Williams, who sometimes hosts historic walks via the group. “Nevertheless it’s value bringing it again on-line.”
The proposed “Restoring Resiliency” venture featured a plan to take away poisonous substances corresponding to mould, lead paint, and asbestos from houses, restore an almost 82-year-old wastewater system, and convert a part of a shuttered highschool band room right into a well being clinic.
“This was a protracted and storied try to bend the arc of justice nearer,” stated Jeremy Wealthy, a Thomas County commissioner and the pastor at First Missionary Baptist Church. “Justice in healthcare. Justice in environmental impression.”
Having a clinic locally can be a “sport changer,” Wealthy stated. Throughout the covid pandemic, he stated, older residents who depend on public transit had been reluctant to go to the close by hospital or the county well being division to get vaccinated. When his church supplied pictures from Black nurses, he stated, vaccination charges improved.
Many residents don’t have the monetary means to take away mould, lead paint, and different poisonous supplies, stated Thomasville Mayor Professional Tem Lucinda Brown. “They simply have cash to dwell with daily. That’s it,” she stated. “If they’ll make that occur.”
The grant meant hope, and its reversal left many asking, “Why us?” Williams stated.
Within the EPA’s May 2025 letter saying the grant termination, it stated Thomasville’s venture promoted “initiatives that battle with the Company’s coverage of prioritizing advantage, equity, and excellence.” The grant was “inconsistent with, and not effectuates, Company priorities,” the letter stated.
Environmental justice tasks are rooted in science, not DEI, stated Jillian Blanchard, the senior vp of local weather change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nationwide nonprofit that gives professional bono authorized help in focus areas corresponding to well being fairness, immigration, and environmental well being.
“The place is the water soiled? The place is the air unclean?” she stated. “That’s the place the cash ought to go.”
In June of last year, nearly two dozen communities and organizations around the country filed a class-action lawsuit to get the Group Change Grants reinstated. The lawsuit argued that the tasks — corresponding to efforts to create energy-efficient housing in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and empower Houston residents within the air pollution allowing course of — had been important.
The case was dismissed by a federal district decide in 2025 however is being appealed.
Thomasville was not named in that lawsuit. However the metropolis did attraction the EPA’s resolution on its venture with the assist of Blanchard’s group. The town and the EPA proceed to dispute the problem.
This March, the EPA’s deputy inspector normal, which serves as an unbiased watchdog for the company, released a report concluding that the method for figuring out the awardees was honest.
Such federal funding is required as a result of large-scale change is tough for small municipalities to realize with out getting caught with high-interest loans, Blanchard stated.
“It’s subsequent to unimaginable,” she stated. “That’s one of many causes the issues haven’t been achieved.”
‘It’s Not Over’
The town of Thomasville has discovered different methods to make some enhancements within the meantime. With the assistance of an almost $3 million federal Group Growth Block Grant from the Division of Housing and City Growth, it made repairs to parts of Dewey Metropolis’s sewer, water, and drainage techniques.
The Thomasville Group Growth Corp. has begun constructing reasonably priced housing in Dewey Metropolis and intends to transform a portion of the closed Douglass faculty into flats for seniors.
The company has additionally utilized for $764,000 in congressional funds via the workplace of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) that it hopes to make use of to assemble a group well being clinic in Dewey Metropolis. Selections on these funding requests will probably be made this fall.
“It’s not over,” stated Williams, whose legacy in Thomasville runs deep. On the heart of what locals name The Backside — a two-block stretch of downtown the place unbiased Black and different minority-owned companies as soon as thrived — is a plaque honoring his father, Earl Williams Jr., the town’s first Black mayor.
As he peered at his father’s memorial on a muggy afternoon, he reaffirmed his intentions.
“There’s extra work to be achieved, and I’m in a position,” he stated. “I like pouring into the group.”
However he has little hope the preliminary grant will probably be restored beneath the present administration.
“That was our shot. We didn’t do something to overlook it,” he stated. “We simply did it throughout the mistaken time frame.”
