Ohio Derailment Sparks Renewed Calls to Nationalize Rail
On Feb. 3, 2023, a train operated by Norfolk Southern and carrying a variety of products, including hazardous chemicals, as it passed by the town of East Palestine, Ohio. Officials evacuated residents and carried out an intentional burn-off to avoid an explosion. Residents have already complained of health problems. The accident comes just months after the Biden administration forced a strike by train operators to end. Now, there are growing calls to .
Ӱҵ Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar interviewed Carl Rosen, general president of (UE), and Marilee Taylor, 34-year veteran retired locomotive engineer and member of , for Rising Up with Sonali.
The views expressed here and on Rising Up With Sonali do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Ӱҵ Media.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined Ӱҵ in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of Ӱҵ Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 of the same name.
|