The Poison Next Door: Measuring Risk in Cancer Alley
Louisiana’s Cancer Alley has a long history of lax environmental regulation of petrochemical industries. Can better data...
April 23, 2026
Order your copy of Black Snake
Native activists named it the “black snake,” referring to an ancient prophecy about a terrible snake that would one day devour the earth. The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline made headlines around the world in 2016.
5 Years After Standing Rock, the Dakota Access Pipeline Continues Operating – Illegally
In June, TC Energy, the company that sought to build the Keystone XL pipeline, announced it would terminate the project....
September 01, 2021
Fixing Solitary Confinement In New York State Prisons
Victor Pate spent almost two years in solitary confinement in New York prisons, off and on. Once, he said, he was isolat...
May 02, 2017
Condoms as Evidence of Prostitution in the United States and the Criminalization of Sex Work
This article advocates for the decriminalization of sex work and examines the effects of the practice by police of using...
May 24, 2013
Invisible Prisoners: The Fight for Human Rights
JURIST Guest Columnist Katherine Todrys of the Health and Human Rights Division of Human Rights Watch recounts her exper...
September 04, 2012
Laws Against Sodomy and the HIV Epidemic In African Prisons
Although laws against sodomy violate international law 1 and have myriad negative health effects, including impeded acce...
July 20, 2012
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Kate Todrys is a human rights lawyer and author, specializing in health and human rights.
Human Rights Watch, “Even Dead Bodies Must Work”
July 27, 2011
Human Rights Watch, Unjust and Unhealthy
April 20, 2010
Human Rights Watch, Returned to Risk
September 20, 2009
An Epic Environmental Drama
[Black Snake] tells much of the backstory behind an absolutely epic environmental drama and it highlights some of the remarkable women who led the fight. If you didn’t get a chance to join the encampment at Standing Rock, this account will put you there.
Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
A Necessary Book
Black Snake is a necessary book, something that Indigenous history needs right now; it is an absorbing story of Native American resilience, protest, and agency. It is a book that should be on reading lists across the United States and beyond.
Pekka Hӓmӓlӓinen, author of Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power
An Important History
Black Snake draws on firsthand interviews to tell an important history from the perspective of those who lived it. Thank you for this book.
Madonna Thunder Hawk, Lakota Civil Rights Activist
A Dramatic Illustration
Todrys tells the story of the people in this fight, of their heartening advances and demoralizing setbacks, in a textured, personal way that brings to life their mistreatment and their inspiring response. This book is a dramatic illustration of how to stand up to powerful interests that are long used to simply casting aside the people in their way.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch
Masterfully Written
Katherine Todrys has written an important book. For all of us who have been rooting for Native Americans in their fight to stop the building of oil pipelines across Native lands and important ecological landscapes, it is a welcomed history. Black Snake is not only exhaustively researched but also masterfully written. It is a must-read for grasping the history of Native Americans’ tragic relationship with the U.S. government and out-of-control capitalism.
Dan O’Brien, author of Great Plains Bison