Race and Civil Rights

March 26, 2013 - A provision of the North Carolina constitution designed to suppress the black vote is no longer enforceable under the Voting Rights Act, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to give voters a second chance to remove it.

March 20, 2013 - Legislation that would ban racial, ethnic or gender history studies from counting toward basic history requirements at Texas universities was spurred by a controversial report from a conservative education policy group that helped get a Chicano newspaper defunded at the state's flagship school.

March 19, 2013 - When the NAACP challenged Jim Crow laws, it selected plaintiffs who would elicit both sympathy and outrage. Today conservatives are using the same tactic, as illustrated by Fisher v. The University of Texas -- a case challenging consideration of race in admissions.

March 8, 2013 - A story in a 1977 issue of Southern Exposure reported on how in the midst of the Great Depression Jessie Daniel Ames organized a mass "revolt against chivalry" that linked the anti-lynching campaign with the struggle for sexual emancipation. We share it today in honor of International Women's Day.

March 4, 2013 - What was true for the civil rights movement in the 1960s is true for the labor movement today: Any social movement in the South needs religion as part of its DNA if it's going to succeed.

February 27, 2013 - Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Here's why it matters.

February 26, 2013 - It was a year ago today that an unarmed teen was shot to death in Sanford, Fla. by a neighborhood watch volunteer. The tragedy sparked questions about Florida's and other states' "stand your ground" self-defense laws, but they all remain on the books today.