History

December 18, 2020 - The luthier's new book "Hanging Tree Guitars" chronicles his life's work through the lens of guitars he made out of a tree where a Black man was lynched near his home in Fountain, North Carolina. We recently spoke with him about his process and latest projects.

December 17, 2020 - For years, the North Carolina Supreme Court has faced calls to take down a large painting of a chief justice who trafficked in and brutalized enslaved people. A court-appointed commission wants to replace the portrait with a smaller version, but some members would like to see all of the portraits gone.

December 3, 2020 - Partly in response to the acclaim for Nikole Hannah-Jones's The 1619 Project on slavery's legacy in the U.S., President Trump recently signed an executive order that seeks to stifle federal agencies, contractors, and grant recipients from talking about systemic racism and sexism. Refusing to be silenced, the African American Policy Forum has launched an effort to overturn it.

November 19, 2020 - A whistleblower complaint has alleged that nonconsensual hysterectomies were being performed on women held at an ICE detention facility in Georgia — and ICE is responding to the allegations by deporting the women. The mistreatment is part of a long history of medical abuses of reproductive rights in the South.

November 18, 2020 - Black voters turned out in record numbers this election cycle but had to overcome barriers to the ballot box that undermine the fairness of the electoral process. Advocates continue to call for restoring the Voting Rights Act to ensure that African American voters are protected from voter suppression.

October 30, 2020 - The South is where most Black Americans live, but the region has sent just one Black senator to Congress since Reconstruction. That could change in 2020.

October 8, 2020 - Meet the state lawmakers up for reelection in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee who champion the Lost Cause version of history that claims that the Civil War was not about slavery and the Klan were the good guys. Also meet who's funding their campaigns.