Race and Civil Rights

September 17, 2014 - A new study into what causes long voting lines has found that race plays a role in who waits the longest. It also found that states may be breaking their own laws by failing to invest adequate resources in elections.

September 16, 2014 - The civil rights group has filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections and a local district attorney over a TV ad sponsored by the campaign of state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger that suggests citizens need to show a photo ID to vote -- even though the ID requirement doesn't take effect until 2016. In North Carolina, misrepresenting election law to discourage voting is a felony.

September 11, 2014 - An analysis by a voting rights watchdog found that 454 North Carolina citizens who would have been able to successfully cast ballots in previous elections had their votes discounted in this year's primary because of the state's new election law -- and those affected were disproportionately African Americans and Democrats.

September 8, 2014 - Angela A. Allen-Bell, a professor at Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has a new article out that turns the tables on anti-Black Panther Party rhetoric by asking if the treatment the group has suffered at the hands of government officials constitutes a form of domestic terrorism.

September 5, 2014 - Now that he's stepping down as North Carolina's budget director, conservative kingmaker Art Pope will have more time to devote to his discount retail company, which recently announced controversial plans to open a grocery in a historic black Raleigh neighborhood that's also a food desert. But Pope may face competition from a food cooperative offering a dramatically different business model.

August 29, 2014 - The total student population in the U.S. is projected to become majority minority this year, but the South hit this milestone six years ago. Demographic changes have been sweeping Southern schools, introducing new racial dynamics in what has traditionally been a black and white story while progress on racial integration slips.

August 21, 2014 - This week marks 50 years since Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delivered historic, nationally televised testimony from the Democratic National Convention about voting rights suppression and racist law enforcement violence -- themes that are once again making headlines across America.