Edward Buckles Jr was only 13 when Hurricane Katrina struck southern United States in 2005.

The storm resulted in nearly 1,400 deaths and became the costliest tropical cyclone on record at the time. Buckles' hometown New Orleans was particularly hit, with 80 percent of the city as well as large areas in neighboring parishes remaining drowned for weeks. Many disappeared in the flood while others were left stranded on rooftops waiting for help.

Television images at the time also revealed a hard truth – a majority of those worst affected were Black people, in numbers disproportionate even to the large percentage of Black people of the city. In the aftermath of the devastating storm, Buckles spent seven years documenting the stories of kids who survived Katrina and made their stories into "Katrina Babies," an HBO documentary that debuted last year.

"Hurricane Katrina was another example of racism plaguing America," Buckles told CGTN.

"If you look at any archival footage (of Hurricane Katrina) from 2005, I don't think it's a coincidence that it's all Black and disenfranchised people who you see dead in the streets, who you see on their roofs waving for help, who you see in the Superdome or on the bridge for three days. I don't think it's a coincidence that you don't see many white people," Buckles said.

As a survivor, Buckles said despite Katrina being a natural disaster, it was very unnatural in its impact and the recovery that followed. While the white population received psychological counseling and other government services, their Black compatriots were left largely neglected. 

Particularly, Black children including Buckles himself got pulled back into school in the immediate aftermath while their psychological trauma remained unaddressed, which had a significant impact on their personal growth.  

A national poll conducted a week after the storm by the Pew research center showed white and Black Americans had very different experience towards the government's relief efforts. Just 19 percent of black people rated the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina as excellent or good, compared with 41 percent of whites.

74 percent of Black people said they felt depressed by what had happened to areas affected by the hurricane; 71 percent felt angry. Fewer whites experienced such strong emotions – 55 percent said they had been depressed and 46 percent angry, according to the center.

"What we experienced in Katrina wasn't just unfair, it was unjust because we should have been protected," Buckles said.

In 1982, African American civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis first coined the term "environmental racism," which was used to describe "racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of color from leadership of the ecology movements".

Since then, the term has evolved to include from workplaces with inadequate health regulations to being forced to live near toxic areas such as sewage works, mines, landfills and power stations due to poverty and discriminatory policies. As a result, communities of color tend to suffer higher rate of health problems.

A groundbreaking study in 2007 by American academic Dr. Robert Bullard pinned the blame on race even tighter. His study found "race to be more important than socioeconomic status in predicting the location of the nation's commercial hazardous waste facilities." 

He proved that African American children were five times more likely to have lead poisoning from proximity to waste than Caucasian children, while even black Americans making $50-60,000 a year were more likely to live in polluted areas than their white counterparts making $10,000.

The city of Jackson, Mississippi remains to be just one of many living testimonies to the environmental racism that remains deep-rooted across America today. The city's residents, nearly four-fifth being Black Americans, had suffered water shortage and quality problem for years. Some turned to bottled water for drinking after the discovery of significant lead presence in tap water last year.

"We can't really afford to stockpile water. I think most people can't. It's a real privilege to be able to get a lot of something. It's a basic human right that a lot of people just aren't really getting," said resident Delaney Coats. She said many haven't been able to shower or cook food in their houses due to fear of water poisoning.

The city's water system has been on the brink of collapse for decades as a result of mismanagement and crumbling infrastructure. Last year, the Justice Department finally stepped in and reached an agreement with the city which required it to have an outside manager run its water department.

Water problems can be traced back to as early as the 1960s, when desegregation triggered the flight of its white population, draining the city's tax base and leaving its infrastructure in a shambles. The city's demographics began shifting 50 years ago – from 60 percent white to 56 percent Black in 1990 to 83 percent Black today. One in four Jacksonians lives in poverty.

"There is an intersectionality of one environmental justice, climate justice and racial justice," said Joshua Dedmond, operations director for Cooperation Jackson, a local cooperative network.   

"I think that this moment in the city of Jackson, making sure that if these crises in climate are to happen over and over again, we will be in this moment again in the winter when the pipes freeze over and bust, because they are more than 100 years old."

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