Women and people of color are being disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. Inequality is exacerbated in a crisis, a reality on full display in Philadelphia, the poorest big city in America. Each week, we will profile a woman in the city grappling with the pandemic.
The pandemic is exacerbating long-existing inequities in all areas of society across the city and the country, but perhaps nowhere more acutely than in education.
Philadelphia is the poorest big city in America, with nearly a quarter of its citizens living below the federal poverty line and more than one in 10 Philadelphians in deep poverty. About 47 percent of residents are renters, with 54 percent paying at least 30 percent of their income in rent.
The Rev. Leslie Callahan, the first female pastor of St. Paul’s Baptist Church, tends to her flock and her family. “I feel like, as a Black woman, we just do what we’ve got to do,” Callahan said. “Who has time to think about how I feel about this?”