bennie thompson
August 14, 2019 -
In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security produced a report that tried to focus the nation's attention on the growing threat of right-wing domestic terrorism. Members of Congress, including several representing Southern states that have suffered domestic terror attacks, worked to bury it.
July 12, 2017 -
A perennial bill to create a national single-payer public health insurance program has record support in this Congress. Though none of the cosponsors are Republicans, they include a growing number of conservative Southern Democrats, signaling a shift in health care politics.
March 2, 2017 -
Hundreds of workers and civil rights advocates plan to march to the Nissan factory in Canton, Mississippi, this Saturday and call on the automaker to respect employees' right to a union election free from intimidation. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and actor and activist Danny Glover will lead the protest.
June 7, 2013 -
Human rights advocate Chokwe Lumumba's election this week as mayor of Jackson, Miss. is the result of work by a new Black-led progressive coalition that intends to fight for power in a state too often written off as redneck Tea Party territory.
November 1, 2012 -
Inspired by the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, the Mississippi Student Justice Alliance was formed to help workers at the giant Nissan plant in Canton, Miss. unionize and to educate young people about labor issues.
August 13, 2012 -
When the CIO launched a campaign to organize Southern workers in 1946, the region's elite fought back by exploiting fears about race and communism -- and fear remains the biggest obstacle to organizing today, as the UAW's campaign to unionize Nissan's Canton, Miss. plant shows.
June 25, 2012 -
The United Auto Workers is focusing its do-or-die Southern campaign on the giant 3,000-worker Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., where many in the largely African-American workforce have already pledged their support for the union.