Next City is partnering with The Jersey Bee, a public service news organization working with communities in Essex County and New Jersey, to launch a series exploring segregation across the Newark metropolitan area and the former “slave state of the North.”

Through 2024, our nonprofit newsrooms will collaboratively report on the persistent legacy of segregation in housing, healthcare and other systems in the country’s most heavily segregated metropolitan area – and what it takes to reimagine Essex County and New Jersey as equitable and just places.

Kimberly Izar, who holds an M.A. in Engagement Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, will lead the series as Next City’s newest Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow. The series is kicking off today with Izar’s report on the region’s history of segregation and how it manifests today.