History
March 17, 2023 -
The Institute for Southern Studies, publisher of Facing South, recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of Southern Exposure, a groundbreaking print journal of radical reporting, writing, and oral history about the region. Co-founder Sue Thrasher discussed how the idea for the project began with a conversation she, SNCC Communications Director Julian Bond, and Howard Romaine, one of the founders of the underground newspaper The Great Speckled Bird, had on a porch in Atlanta.
March 8, 2023 -
Founded in 1973 by the Institute for Southern Studies, Southern Exposure magazine went on to earn a reputation for groundbreaking coverage of politics and culture in the U.S. South. Democratizing access to the archive is critically important work in a moment when history and who is allowed to tell it are once again under attack.
February 23, 2023 -
Goat in the Road Productions of New Orleans recently presented an immersive play about a family of Sicilian grocers deciding whether to make common cause with Black/Creole grocers during the city's 1892 general strike. They were joined by community partners Step Up Louisiana and the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice to help raise awareness about the history behind the drama.
January 10, 2023 -
Fifty-eight years ago this month, the Georgia legislature refused to seat newly elected state representative Julian Bond because of his stance against the war in Vietnam. To mark that anniversary, we are republishing a 1976 Southern Exposure interview with him.
December 16, 2022 -
A radiation health expert who spoke out publicly about the coverup she witnessed while working inside Three Mile Island after the 1979 meltdown, Joy Thompson died last month in North Carolina. We remember her extraordinary courage and share the groundbreaking 2009 Facing South investigation she and her husband, Randall Thompson, informed.
November 30, 2022 -
A new book co-edited by economist William "Sandy" Darity Jr. and his colleagues at Duke University explores how the coronavirus pandemic worsened racial inequality. Facing South recently spoke with Darity, a leading scholar of reparations for slavery, about policies to address the racial wealth gap.
November 15, 2022 -
Rev. Charles Sherrod, a leader of the Albany Movement in Georgia, passed away earlier this year. A 1974 article in Southern Exposure remembered Sherrod's New Communities project, an experiment in land-based justice. We republish that article with an introduction from Chip Hughes, who lived on New Communities Farm in the 1970s, remembering Sherrod's life and work.