Demographics

March 11, 2022 - A new report from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center finds that the number of U.S. hate groups fell for the third year in a row — but says that's not necessarily good news, as such views are now moving from the fringe into the mainstream. It also found that hate groups are becoming more concentrated in the Southern states.  

February 25, 2022 - Inspired by her own experience with postpartum depression, Louisiana nurse practitioner and doula Nikki Greenaway launched an innovative practice to care for vulnerable new mothers. She talks with Facing South about how her model of community care can help address the maternal mortality crisis, which is especially dire among young Black women living in Louisiana and other Southern states. 

December 16, 2021 - Southern states' new Republican-drawn election maps would mean less political power for communities of color in the Black Belt region. Voters there are now asking state and federal courts to decide if the new districts violate state or federal law, including the Voting Rights Act.

December 10, 2021 - In its first lawsuit to come out of the latest round of redistricting, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken aim at Texas, arguing that the GOP legislature's new election district maps violate the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against voters by race or color. We look at some of the numbers cited in the lawsuit, which faces an uphill fight in the new legal landscape created by the Supreme Court's 2013 decision gutting the landmark civil rights-era law.

November 19, 2021 - A new report finds that while they have made dramatic progress in recent decades, Black women are still underrepresented in politics, with the disparities especially stark in Southern states. Next year's elections offer another chance for them to build power.

November 18, 2021 - Voting rights groups have challenged election districts for the Louisiana Supreme Court, which counts just one Black justice among its seven members. Legislators want to add new districts to settle the suit, but their most recent attempt broke down over the issue of how many should have majority-Black populations.

November 16, 2021 - The 2020 census undercounted the overall U.S. population by just 0.5%, but much bigger undercounts in Southern states will cost them millions of dollars in federal health care funding for low-income communities, according to a new report from the Urban Institute.