civil rights
November 16, 2023 -
On a panel at the Southern Exposure 50th anniversary event this spring, Sue Thrasher, Leah Wise, and Bob Hall talked about launching the Institute for Southern Studies and Southern Exposure magazine in the 1970s. Listen to the panel on SLSA’s Working History podcast and read the transcript.
March 11, 2022 -
Thousands of people gathered recently in Alabama for the 57th anniversary of the historic Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights, which was met with police violence as peaceful demonstrators tried to cross a bridge named for a Klan leader. This year's event took place as state legislatures across the South are passing bills to limit voting and protesting.
October 4, 2021 -
South Carolina is dealing with a high proportion of children suffering from COVID-19, but Gov. Henry McMaster (R) and other state leaders want to block public schools from enforcing mask mandates. We hear from teachers and doctors fighting to protect children from deadly infection.
September 29, 2021 -
Facing South interviewed co-director Julie Cohen and producer and writer Talleah Bridges McMahon, two creators behind "My Name is Pauli Murray," a new documentary that details the triumphs and struggles of the groundbreaking civil rights and feminist lawyer and advocate who was raised in Durham, North Carolina.
June 18, 2021 -
Despite lawsuits instituting reforms, state prisons across the U.S. continue to be places of physical and sexual violence, especially against incarcerated people of color. Conditions got so bad in Alabama's prisons that the federal government recently sued the state for violating the Constitution. Robert T. Chase, a historian of prisons, says they need the same kind of scrutiny now faced by police.
August 27, 2020 -
Since the Civil War, the post office has provided important economic opportunity for African Americans and played a critical role in advancing equal rights in the South. Now it's under threat from Postmaster Louis DeJoy, whose own company — a postal service contractor — has been sued over racial discrimination and other maltreatment of workers.
February 21, 2020 -
Jim Wallis, a theologian and founder of the progressive Christian community Sojourners, recently spoke in North Carolina on the topic of "Reclaiming Jesus." Facing South caught up with him to discuss the current political moment, the Christian church's racial divide, and how the nation's changing demographics are also changing religion.
