Freedom Summer 1964 was a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, where hundreds of volunteers, primarily college students, traveled to Mississippi to register African American voters, establish Freedom Schools, and challenge the systemic racism that had long pervaded the region. This summer of activism played a crucial role in advancing civil rights and social justice in the United States.
The event will be emceed by Alice Fried of the Solano County League of Women Voters and will include two special presentations. First, former Poet Laureate Mary Susan Gast (2020-2023), who participated in Freedom Summer as a college student, will share “Gifts from Freedom Summer –1964,” followed by a unique portrayal of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Hamer, who rose from humble beginnings in the Mississippi Delta to become one of the most important, passionate, and powerful voices of the civil and voting rights movements and a leader in the efforts for greater economic opportunities for African Americans, will be brought to life by local artist and activist Linda Youngblood Wright.
The event will also include refreshments and an opportunity for Q&A about Freedom Summer 1964 and continued efforts to ensure voting rights across our country. Voter registration tables will also be set up, so that anyone who isn’t registered to vote can do so.
2– 4pm, in the Doña Benicia Room at the Benicia Public Library, 150 East L Street, Benicia. Registration is not required. This event is free and appropriate for all ages.
Disclaimers: Benicia Independent is not affiliated with either Benicia Public Library or the BUSD.
[BenIndy: This post was first published in the Benicia Herald (to subscribe to the Herald, scroll to the end to find instructions). You can find more from Steve not only on the BenIndy but also at A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country, where he blogs about domestic and international politics and policy, including lessons that the United States can learn from other nations. If interested, you may sign up for future posts by subscribing to the blog.]
Christina Gilpin-Hayes, 2024 Benicia City Council Candidate. | Photo provided by campaign.
By Stephen Golub, originally published in the August 18, 2024 Benicia Herald
Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land
I recently interviewed Christina Gilpin-Hayes, who’s running for Benicia City Council. Part One of the interview, published today, focuses on her background, life, work and engagement with community service. Next Sunday, Part Two will address why she’s seeking office and her priorities and aims if elected.
CGH: My wife and I decided we were ready for a slower pace of life and more space. We explored homes from Oakland, where we were living, all the way to Sacramento and everywhere in between. We found a house in Benicia that we loved and immediately put in an offer. Even though we were outbid, we had already fallen in love with Benicia.
Shortly after, we found another home in Old Southampton that we also loved. Although it hadn’t been updated much since it was built in the early ’70s, we saw its potential. We spent a few months in Airbnbs with our two dogs while the house was fixed up.
SG: Since arriving, are there any aspects of Benicia that you’ve learned about and that have especially pleased you?
CGH: I love how much Benicians care about being Benicians. On the first day we arrived after closing on the house, neighbors came over to welcome us and get to know us. I also appreciate how many Benicians have been here for generations. The community genuinely cares for each other. If you check any of the Benicia social media pages, you’ll see people returning lost wallets, stuffed animals left at the parks, and making sure lost pets find their way home. There is such a rich history here, but what I love most about Benicia is the Benicians.
SG: As a fellow animal lover, I’ll start asking about your interests by addressing your involvement with animal rescue. Could you describe that work and how you got involved with it?
CGH: I’ve been involved in animal rescue in some form since I was a kid. Back then, it was sneaking sick feral kittens into my room without my mom finding out. I’ve volunteered for West Coast Boxer Rescue (WCBR) for over a decade and had previously volunteered for other rescues as well. I foster dogs who are waiting for their forever homes or those with medical needs who need a soft place to land while they heal. I also transport dogs from high-kill shelters to rescue or from rescue to their new adoptive homes. As an adoption coordinator, I meet with families to ensure the dog they’re interested in is a good fit for their home and activity level.
Before my involvement with WCBR, I rescued two boxer puppies who were being sold at just 5 weeks old and were very sick with parvovirus. My plan was to find them adoptive homes once they recovered, but one was deaf and partially blind and relied heavily on her sister, so I kept both girls. Lola passed away in 2022 at 9 years old, and Gemma, my deaf girl, passed away just a few weeks ago at 11.5 years old.
SG: What other community activities have you been involved with, whether elsewhere or especially here?
CGH: I am the founder of the Benicia LGBTQIA Network. We started the group to create social and networking opportunities for our LGBTQ+ community, and it has been very well received in Benicia. We alternate between hosting free events, like a picnic in the park, and events at local Benicia businesses to keep our dollars in the community. We did host one event in Martinez at a movie theatre, but otherwise, we stay local in Benicia.
We’ve participated in most of the activities Benicia has to offer. We enjoy the farmers market, the peddler’s fair, the dog festival, and all the great outdoor activities. My wife just started paddleboarding on the Strait, and we both enjoy hiking around Lake Herman and attending events at City Park.
I’ve always been involved in community activities, whether through an official organization or by stepping in when I saw a need that wasn’t being met. During the early stages of COVID, in my previous neighborhood, we offered grocery shopping or ran errands for our elder or at-risk neighbors. I also helped organize a peace march and rally in Richmond after a violent attack on a student following a homecoming dance in 2009.
I’ve often hosted fundraisers and community meetings at my home when a suitable venue wasn’t available or affordable. Being involved is something I feel strongly about, and I strive to live by that commitment every day.
SG: I understand that you also host a neighborhood gathering/film show for kids on Halloween. What is that like?
CGH: I do! I’ve been doing this for many years at my home in Oakland, and I continued the tradition when we moved to Benicia. We hang a projector on the garage, show kid-friendly Halloween movies, and invite our neighbors to come over and hand out candy with us. The first year in Benicia, we had just a few people, but last year we almost ran out of room on the driveway!
We live in Old Southampton, on a block that may not have the same trick or treating reputation as other areas in Benicia, but since we started this, word has gotten out. Our first year, we had only 7 kids; this past year, we had almost 50! While that might seem low compared to some of other neighborhoods, 50 kids in Old Southampton is impressive! We posted on Nextdoor and Benicia Happenings, and people drove up with their kids to trick-or-treat before heading to the flatter neighborhoods.
The kids enjoy getting treats from multiple homes at one stop, and we also make sure there are plenty of snacks and drinks for the adults who might need a break from the Halloween activities.
SG: Could you tell us something more about your personal and professional backgrounds?
CGH: I grew up in Citrus Heights, a suburb of Sacramento, and lived in Pittsburgh, PA, where I met my wife, for eight years, followed by nearly two years in Chicago. The Chicago winters were too much for me, so I moved back to California in 2007, settling in Oakland. I completed my bachelor’s degree at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, focusing on Business Communication and Organizational Behavior.
I started my legal career at a small legal service company before moving into a paralegal role at a large firm in Pittsburgh. I’ve worked at several large firms, including assisting startup companies. I later moved into a leadership role, managing almost 100 paralegals and case assistants. After a brief stint in financial services, I returned to a law firm where I now serve as the Operations Manager on our Innovation team. We’re building state-of-the-art legal technology solutions (in layman’s terms, software to make corporate legal services less expensive and more efficient). I lead a small team and do a lot of training, which I really enjoy.
SG: Thanks very much, Christina.
Stay tuned for Part Two of this interview, coming Sunday, August 25.
The Benicia Herald does not have an online edition. Supporting local journalism is crucial for ensuring communities are informed and facilitates transparency and accountability during important local events and initiatives. You can subscribe to the Herald by email at beniciacirculation@gmail.com or by phone at 707-745-6838.
Maybe her best moment, the “black job” comment: BenIndy: Wow! Pay attention when you come to minute 10:15. It’s a 1½ minute clip you won’t want to miss! –>
Full Transcript of Michelle Obama’s Speech at the Democratic Convention
The former first lady spoke for just over 20 minutes and told the convention that “hope is making a comeback.”
“No one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one,” Michelle Obama said in her speech on Tuesday night in Chicago. Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
OK. We got a big night ahead. Thank you all so much. Thank you so much. OK. There you go.
Hello, Chicago! Yeah. All right. Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it? You know, we’re feeling it here in this arena, but it’s spreading across this country we love. A familiar feeling that has been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the contagious power of hope.
The anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day. The chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division and hate that have consumed us and continue pursuing the unfinished promise of this great nation, the dream that our parents and grandparents fought and died and sacrificed for.
America, hope is making a comeback.
Yeah. But, to be honest, I am realizing that, until recently, I have mourned the dimming of that hope. And maybe you’ve experienced the same feelings, that deep pit in my stomach, a palpable sense of dread about the future.
And for me, that mourning has also been mixed with my own personal grief. The last time I was here in my hometown was to memorialize my mother — the woman who showed me the meaning of hard work and humility and decency, the woman who set my moral compass high and showed me the power of my own voice.
Folks, I still feel her loss so profoundly. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be steady enough to stand before you tonight, but my heart compelled me to be here because of the sense of duty that I feel to honor her memory. And to remind us all not to squander the sacrifices our elders made to give us a better future.
You see, my mom, in her steady, quiet way, lived out that striving sense of hope every single day of her life. She believed that all children, all — all people have value. That anyone can succeed if given the opportunity. She and my father did not aspire to be wealthy. In fact, they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed. They understood that it wasn’t enough for their kids to thrive if everyone else around us was drowning.
So, my mother volunteered at the local school. She — she always looked out for the other kids on the block. She was glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation. The belief that if you do unto others, if you love thy neighbor, if you work and scrape and sacrifice, it will pay off. If not for you, then maybe for your children or your grandchildren.
You see, those values have been passed on through family farms and factory towns, through tree-lined streets and crowded tenements, through prayer groups and National Guard units and social-studies classrooms. Those were the values my mother poured into me until her very last breath.
Kamala Harris and I built our lives on the same foundational values. Even though our mothers grew up an ocean apart, they shared the same belief in the promise of this country. That’s why her mother moved here from India at 19. It’s why she taught Kamala about justice, about the obligation to lift others up, about our responsibility to give more than we take. She’d often tell her daughter, “don’t sit around and complain about things. Do something.”
So, with that voice in her head, Kamala went out and she worked hard in school, graduating from an H.B.C.U., earning her law degree at a state school. And then she went on to work for the people, fighting to hold lawbreakers accountable, strengthening the rule of law, fighting to give folks better wages, cheaper prescription drugs, a good education, decent health care, child care, elder care. From a middle-class household, Kamala worked her way up to become vice president of the United States of America.
My girl, Kamala Harris, is more than ready for this moment. She is one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency. And she is one of the most dignified. A tribute to her mother, to my mother and to your mother, too. The embodiment of the stories we tell ourselves about this country. Her story is your story. It’s my story. It’s the story of the vast majority of Americans trying to build a better life.
Look, Kamala knows, like we do, that regardless of where you come from, what you look like, who you love, how you worship, or what’s in your bank account, we all deserve the opportunity to build a decent life. All of our contributions deserve to be accepted and valued. Because no one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American. No one.
Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation. Not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service, and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others.
She understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.
If we bankrupt a business — if we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No.
We don’t get to change the rules so we always win. If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top. No. We put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something.
And throughout her entire life, that’s what we have seen from Kamala Harris. The steel of her spine, the steadiness of her upbringing, the honesty of her example and yes, the joy of her laughter and her light.
It couldn’t be more obvious. Of the two major candidates in this race, only Kamala Harris truly understands the unseen labor and unwavering commitment that has always made America great.
Now, unfortunately, we know what comes next. We know folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth. My husband and I sadly know a little something about this.
For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us.
See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black. I want to know — I want to know — who’s going to tell him, who’s going to tell him, that the job he is currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?
It’s his same old con. His same old con. Doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.
Look, because cutting our health care, taking away our freedom to control our bodies, the freedom to become a mother through I.V.F., like I did — those things are not going to improve the health outcomes of our wives, mothers and daughters. Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books — none of that will prepare our kids for the future. Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love, look, that doesn’t make anybody’s life better. Instead, instead, it only makes us small. And let me tell you this: Going small is never the answer. Going small is the opposite of what we teach our kids. Going small is petty. It’s unhealthy. And quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.
So, why would any of us accept this from anyone seeking our highest office. Why would we normalize that type of backward leadership? Doing so only demeans and cheapens our politics. It only serves to further discourage good, big-hearted people from wanting to get involved at all. America, our parents taught us better than that. And we deserve so much better than that. That’s why we must do everything in our power to elect two of those good, big-hearted people. There is no other choice than Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. No other choice.
But as we embrace this renewed sense of hope, let us not forget the despair we have felt. Let us not forget what we are up against. Yes, Kamala and Tim are doing great now. We’re loving it. They are packing arenas across the country. Folks are energized. We are feeling good. But remember, there are still so many people who are desperate for a different outcome, who are ready to question and criticize every move Kamala makes, who are eager to spread those lies, who don’t want to vote for a woman, who will continue to prioritize building their wealth over ensuring that everyone has enough.
So no matter how good we feel tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day, this is going to be an uphill battle. So folks, we cannot be our own worst enemies. No. See, because the minute something goes wrong, the minute a lie takes hold, folks, we cannot start wringing our hands. We cannot get a goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right. And we cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala, instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.
Kamala and Tim, they have lived amazing lives. And I am confident that they will lead with compassion, inclusion and grace. But they are still only human. They are not perfect. And like all of us, they will make mistakes. But luckily, y’all, this is not just on them. This is up to us, all of us, to be the solution that we seek. It’s up to all of us to be the antidote to the darkness and division. Look, I don’t care how you identify politically, whether you are Democrat, Republican, independent or none of the above. This is our time to stand up for what we know in our hearts is right.
To stand up not just for our basic freedoms, but for decency and humanity. For basic respect, dignity and empathy. For the values at the very foundation of this democracy. It’s up to us to remember what Kamala’s mother told her: Don’t just sit around and complain, do something.
So if they lie about her, and they will, we’ve got to do something. If we see a bad poll, and we will, we’ve got to put down that phone, and do something. If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we’ve got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our face, and what? [Crowd chants back: “Do Something!”]
We only have two and a half months, y’all, to get this done. Only 11 weeks to make sure every single person we know is registered and has a voting plan. So we cannot afford for anyone, anyone, anyone in America to sit on their hands and wait to be called. Don’t complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to you to ask you for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness. You know what you need to do. So consider this to be your official ask. Michelle Obama is asking you — no, I’m telling y’all — to do something.
This election is going to be close. In some states, just a handful — listen to me — a handful of votes in every precinct could decide the winner. So we need to vote in numbers that erase any doubt. We need to overwhelm any effort to suppress us. Our fate is in our hands. In 77 days, we have the power to turn our country away from the fear, division and smallness of the past. We have the power to marry our hope with our action. We have the power to pay forward the love, sweat and sacrifice of our mothers and fathers and all those who came before us. We did it before y’all, and we sure can do it again. Let us work like our lives depend on it, and let us keep moving our country forward and go higher, yes, always higher than we’ve ever gone before, as we elect the next president and vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Thank you all, God bless.
Now, before I go, I have one more job tonight. Yeah. One more job.
You all, thank you for all the love. But it is now my honor to introduce somebody who knows a whole lot about hope. Someone who has spent his life strengthening our democracy. And let me tell you, as someone who lives with him: He wakes up every day, every day, and thinks about what’s best for this country.
Please welcome America’s 44th president and the love of my life, Barack Obama.
Opponents of Valero’s oil train proposal gathered in City Hall on the night of Benicia’s historic vote to STOP crude by rail. September 20, 2016. Photo by Emily Jovais, https://safebenicia.org/
[Note from BenIndy contributor Roger Straw: I was contacted by award-winning E&E Politico reporter Sean Reilly on August 12. Sean wanted to know about the two letters sent by then CA Attorney General Kamala Harris during Benicia’s long and controversial consideration of Valero Benicia Refinery’s “Crude by Rail” proposal. Sean’s excellent article appears below. Note that the Benicia Independent was deeply involved and some say instrumental in helping to defeat the refinery’s (and the rail industry’s) dangerous plan to run mile-long trains loaded with heavy and potentially explosive tar-sands crude oil over the mountains and into our small town. Local activists, commission members and electeds were at the heart of the opposition, but we couldn’t have stopped the CBR proposal without a LOT of help from environmental organizations, activists, staff and electeds from other cities near and far, and experts and attorneys in many fields — including the two letters from our then-Attorney General, Kamala Harris. For more, see our Crude By Rail PERMANANT ARCHIVE. And please show your appreciation for E&E News / Politico by subscribing here. – Roger Straw (Oh, and P.S. – go Kamala!!]
How Harris stood up against an oil giant as Calif.’s top lawyer
Then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris speaks to California Democrats on May 16, 2015, in Anaheim. Damian Dovarganes/AP
Her stance on a pivotal crude-by-rail decision, considered a precedent-setting move, is seen as emblematic of her environmental priorities.
Kamala Harris skewered both a refinery’s plan to use trains to move potentially huge amounts of oil to a San Francisco Bay Area refinery and local oversight of the project when she served as California’s attorney general.
Although the episode did not draw the national spotlight accompanying Harris’ work on a landmark emissions cheating settlement with automaker Volkswagen and other higher-profile initiatives, some see it as an equally telling example of her environmental priorities as the state’s top lawyer.
Harris “didn’t have to get involved,” Craig Segall, a lawyer for the California Air Resources Board at the time who is now vice president of Evergreen Action, a climate policy group, said in a phone interview and ensuing text exchange.
That she did, Segall said, meshed with a focus on community health and getting ahead of emerging problems. The oil industry was also advancing “truly radical legal arguments,” he added, that would have made it hard for communities to address crude by rail in the future.
Under the plan unveiled by Valero Energy more than a decade ago, Union Pacific trains would have unloaded up to 70,000 barrels of crude each day at a refinery in Benicia, a waterfront city on the Bay Area’s northern shore.
After an impassioned 3 ½ year battle that played out largely at the local level, the project went down to defeat in 2016.
At the outset, however, that outcome was not preordained in a community where Valero wields considerable economic heft.
Shadowing the fracas was the 2013 crude-by-rail inferno that killed 47 people in Canada. In a scathing critique issued the next year, Harris’ office faulted the city’s draft environmental review for “severely” underestimating the risk of an accident.
Among other purported lapses, the review also relied on “improper standards of significance, unenforceable mitigation measures, and inadequate analyses” and failed to assess the possible air pollution impacts of changes to the refinery’s crude oil mix, a Harris deputy wrote in the 15-page broadside.
“I would say it was very important, if not crucial, largely because of the timing,” Benicia Mayor Steve Young said of the letter in a recent interview. Young, a member of Benicia’s planning commission at the time, evolved into a fierce critic of Valero’s plans. He later won election to the City Council before becoming mayor.
Up to that point, Young said, the controversy had been framed as a regional issue revolving around residents’ health and safety worries. “But when the AG’s office stepped in, it was seen as a disinterested third party that had an expert opinion.”
The city eventually issued a revised version of the environmental review that addressed many of the attorney general’s objections; the planning commission ultimately voted to reject Valero’s permit application.
Harris’ intervention, which was closely covered by local news outlets, is warmly remembered by other Bay Area critics of the project. “Her support for a safe and healthy world was incredibly important,” Benicia blogger Roger Straw wrote in a 2020 post urging a vote for Harris when she was seeking the vice presidency as a running mate to Joe Biden.
Harris served as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017 before joining the U.S. Senate and then becoming part of the Biden administration. She is now the Democratic nominee in this year’s presidential race against former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
The Union Pacific trains that were to have brought oil to the Benicia refinery would have rumbled through downtown Sacramento, the California state capital where the attorney general’s office and other state agencies are headquartered.
To what extent, if at all, that motivated Harris’ involvement is unclear. Her campaign did not reply to emails seeking her rationale for weighing in on the Valero project. The deputy who signed the letter now works for the California Environmental Protection Agency, which declined to allow an interview with him and instead referred questions to the attorney general’s office.
There, a spokesperson said the agency often issues feedback letters in the course of monitoring projects for compliance with the state’s Environmental Quality Act but otherwise had no comment on its role in the Benicia project.
A representative of Texas-based Valero did not respond to phone and email messages. Throughout a prolonged campaign to persuade Benicia city officials to issue the needed approvals, the company consistently maintained that the endeavor was safe, records show.
Its decades-old Benicia plant is one of several refineries in the Bay Area, with a workforce totaling more than 400 employees and the ability to turn 170,000 barrels of crude each day into products like gasoline, jet fuel and asphalt. It is the city’s largest private employer, Young said, and also accounts for a large chunk of the local tax base.
The company went public with its crude-by-rail plans in early 2013, portraying them as crucial to maintaining the refinery’s competitiveness by allowing it to substitute North American oil for foreign crude delivered by ship, according to an article at the time in the San Antonio Express-News.
The project was part of a surge in energy industry zeal for train transport, as oil production took off in areas like North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation. In part because of its concentration of refineries, California stood to be disproportionately affected.
Public opposition
Just months later, however, came the disaster at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, when a short-line train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded. For foes of the Benicia project, the tragedy was “critical” to mobilizing public opposition, Andrés Soto, an activist at the time, said in an interview.
Initially, however, the city’s response to Valero’s proposal was positive. While the project would at least temporarily lead to more air pollution and other environmental effects, they could all be “mitigated,” a May 2013 staff study found. The project had the backing of labor advocates and some residents, public hearing transcripts show.
But opponents successfully pressed for the broader review released in draft form in mid-2014. It offered a more detailed look at the potential effects but again found that fixes were possible.
While “significant and unavoidable impacts to air quality” loomed, for example, there were ways to address them, the draft found.
The local dispute was unfolding against a much bigger backdrop. From 2012 to 2013, the volume of rail-carried oil shipments into California had soared roughly 500 percent from 1 million barrels to 6.3 million barrels and was set to grow further, a state panel found in a report that argued for across-the-board action by government and business.
Railroads were pushing back. In a lawsuit, Union Pacific and other industry challengers sought to strike down a recently enacted California rail safety law, arguing that federal law preempted “this entire regime.”
The suit was eventually thrown out, but Harris’ office weighed in again after Valero appealed the planning commission’s decision to the Benicia City Council and took the preemption issue to the Surface Transportation Board, or STB, a federal agency that helps regulate freight rail transportation.
While the company contended that federal law barred Benicia from considering “rail-related impacts,” Harris’ office replied in April 2016 that the city nonetheless had permitting authority over Valero’s plans for building tank car unloading racks and other facilities, the letter said.
Valero “is not a ‘rail carrier’ constructing a project subject to SIB’s exclusive jurisdiction,” the response said. ”It is an oil company engaged in a project entirely removed from STB’s regulation.”
In an order issued five months later, the Surface Transportation Board reached a similar conclusion, writing that the record “does not demonstrate” that Valero is a rail carrier. Soon after, in a meeting preserved on video, the City Council voted 5-0 to deny the permit.
Then-Mayor Elizabeth Patterson called the decision a precedent-setting move for the state. The audience, seemingly packed with Valero critics, cheered.
Sean Reilly, Reporter for E&E News by POLITICO, Covers Air Pollution, EPA
Sean writes about air quality policy and regulations. His work has been honored by the National Press Club and Washington Press Club Foundation, among others; he also contributed a chapter to “Turning Carolina Red,” an eBook published by E&E in 2014. He previously reported for the Federal Times and newspapers in Alabama. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Carleton College and a master’s degree in the same subject from Duke University.
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