September 3, 2021 -
Even before the pandemic, evictions disproportionately hurt Black people living in the South. Now, with the moratorium lifted, Black communities will be hit even harder. Meanwhile, Southern states have been slow to distribute federal aid aimed at avoiding evictions.
September 3, 2021 -
A Texas law passed in May that bans abortions starting at six weeks of pregnancy went into effect this week after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. Abortion providers in neighboring states are preparing for an onslaught of patients from Texas.
September 1, 2021 -
The same North Carolina law firm that successfully took on Smithfield Foods' hog farm pollution is now representing a group of plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Tennessee-based hospital company HCA, owner of Asheville's Mission Health System. The suit — which claims the company has monopolized the regional health care market in a way that's hurting patients and caregivers — comes amid heightened scrutiny of health care monopolies.
September 1, 2021 -
Automatic voter registration has dramatically expanded the electorate in states including Georgia, but Republican lawmakers have targeted the policy for elimination.
August 27, 2021 -
This Labor Day weekend, people will gather in West Virginia to mark the centennial of the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in U.S. history. We look at what led to the bloody battle — when 10,000 Black, white, and immigrant coal miners joined together to fight for union rights against coal companies allied with corrupt law enforcement — and how it's being commemorated.
August 26, 2021 -
Our monuments, markers, and other historical sites shape how we remember our past — with implications for the present. Writing for Southern Exposure magazine in 2000, sociologist and people's historian James Loewen journeyed through the South's memorial landscape and found that, all too often, it got the story wrong. Loewen died this month at age 79.
August 23, 2021 -
The fellowship offered by the Institute for Southern Studies, now entering its third year, aims to promote new voices in Southern media and support public interest journalists and researchers in the South. Given the coronavirus epidemic, the Institute will consider applications from prospective fellows who seek to conduct their fellowship remotely or while based at the Institute's offices in Durham, North Carolina.
