religion

June 24, 2015 - Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the NC NAACP and leader of the Moral Monday movement, delivered a sermon Sunday about the messages of the Charleston church shootings: that nine people were killed because their church fought racism, that racism is not just ugly words but policies often promoted through coded racist language, and that we need not closure but systemic change.

April 10, 2015 - A factor behind the backlash against recent legislative proposals to allow religion-based discrimination against gay people may be the declining clout of white evangelicals -- especially in the South.

January 15, 2015 - The Bible instructs us to "love the stranger," but migrants probably won't be feeling much love this year in Mississippi. Gov. Phil Bryant is up for re-election, and he has built his political career in part on demonizing undocumented migrant workers.

August 28, 2014 - Last week a North Carolina judge minced no words in his ruling that a law giving taxpayer-funded vouchers to low-income families that want to send their children to private schools was a violation of the state constitution and the public good. Supporters of the program have asked the state Supreme Court to take emergency action to release the money anyway.

May 7, 2013 - Observations on the current state of North Carolina politics, in verse.

March 28, 2013 - How different are Southern views about gay marriage? And are they changing fast enough for marriage equality advocates to win victories in Southern states?

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.