The Documentary Examines The Water Crisis In Jackson, Miss. Months After The City Was Left Without Running Water, And Why Residents Still Don’t Trust The Water System Today

Streams On NBC News NOW Tonight At 10:30 P.M. ET

Watch The Trailer Here

(Dec. 16, 2022) – NBC News will present Boiling Point: A City’s Fight for Clean Water, an all-new documentary short hosted by NBC News reporter, Zinhle Essamuah, that spotlights the tight-knit community in Jackson, Mississippi months after a crisis left them without running water. The state says the water is safe to drink, but many in Jackson still don’t trust a system that has plagued them for decades. The documentary launches today, Dec. 16 at 10:30 p.m. ET on NBC News NOW and is also available to stream on Peacock and the NBC News YouTube channel. 

In August 2022, the entire country took notice when a state of emergency was issued in Jackson after a water treatment plant failed, leaving more than 150,000 people in the city and surrounding areas without access to clean water. But the problems facing Jackson’s water didn’t begin in August – the city has long been plagued by infrastructure issues that have made clean and reliable water a constant challenge. 

In Boiling Point: A City’s Fight for Clean Water, Essamuah meets with city leaders – including interviews with Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) – and community members in Jackson to examine how a U.S.state capital repeatedly struggles to deliver a resource that most Americans take for granted. In a state that resisted the desegregation of public schools until a Supreme Court order in 1969, resulting in white flight from Jackson, the documentary also examines why, for many in Jackson, failing to fulfill a basic human need such as clean water in a predominantly Black community suggests a legacy of racism at the heart of the problem. 

“Something that strikes me is that when you’re talking about water in Jackson, you’re never just talking about the water,” says Essamuah. “The layers of the issues are compounding and it feels like Jackson is nearing not just a boiling point, but also a breaking point and this real opportunity for change.”

Boiling Point: A City’s Fight for Clean Water launches today, Dec. 16 at 10:30 p.m. ET on NBC News NOW and is also available to stream on NBCNews.com, Peacock and the NBC News YouTube channel. NBC News NOW is available on Peacock, Fubo, Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel, Tubi, Xumo, YouTube, YouTube TV and NBC News’ apps on Roku, Fire TV and Apple TV. 

Boiling Point: A City’s Fight for Clean Water is produced by NBC News Digital Docs.

About NBC News Digital Docs

NBC News Digital Docs is an award-winning collection of video journalists within the NBC News Digital organization, producing short form documentary content and feature specials distributed across NBCUniversal News Group platforms and Peacock. Previous projects from Digital Docs include A Marriage on Trial: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, and the Truth in the Age of Social Media, examining social media’s impact on the Depp v. Heard trial, and Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary, which premiered at DOC NYC 2022. Rachael Morehouse is Executive Producer of NBC News Digital Docs and Shalini Sharma is Executive Editor of NBC News Digital Productions.

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For more information, contact:

Natalie Munio
NBC News Digital
Natalie.Munio@nbcuni.com

Claudia Meyer-Samargia
NBC News Digital
Claudia.MeyerSamargia@nbcuni.com