R.I. - Schools will soon reopen.
Thoughts turn to seeing old friends, to notebooks, pencils, new teachers and learning.
It should not be a time for fear and the potential high risk of illness. But in one neighborhood, the building of a new elementary school and two middle schools has resulted in protest and litigation charging environmental racism. The Springfield Street school construction site was an illegal dump in the 1950s. Later, the City of Providence operated it as a dump until the early 1970s. The Superior Court lawsuit is seeking to stop the construction of the schools on this site.