History
August 27, 2020 -
Since the Civil War, the post office has provided important economic opportunity for African Americans and played a critical role in advancing equal rights in the South. Now it's under threat from Postmaster Louis DeJoy, whose own company — a postal service contractor — has been sued over racial discrimination and other maltreatment of workers.
August 5, 2020 -
As the U.S. marks the 55th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, there's a political fight underway in the U.S. Senate to restore the law after its 2013 gutting by the U.S. Supreme Court.
July 31, 2020 -
In North Carolina, the Durham Black Farmers Market has become so popular it's now branched out to nearby Raleigh. The markets are part of a growing local food justice movement that seeks to nourish and empower Black communities that have too often been cut off from agricultural opportunity.
July 28, 2020 -
As the civil rights icon lies in state this week at the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers continue to press to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark civil rights legislation that Lewis nearly died fighting for.
July 18, 2020 -
Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia), who became a leader in the Civil Rights Movement as a student and chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for several years before being elected to Congress in 1987, has died at age 80. In this 1980 interview with Lewis, he recalls the Nashville sit-ins and the deep faith he had in the Movement.
July 16, 2020 -
In 1988, Southern Exposure, the print forerunner of Facing South, published a speech by Segrest, a North Carolina anti-racist organizer and lesbian activist, for an issue on lesbians and gays in the South. Segrest went on to write several books, including "Memoir of a Race Traitor," and to teach college in Connecticut. Back in North Carolina again, Segrest recently talked with Facing South about the urgency of broad-based organizing in this historic moment.
July 1, 2020 -
Against the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter uprising, a recent spate of suspicious hanging deaths of Black and Brown people nationwide sparks fears about the kind of vicious white backlash against Black progress the U.S. has seen before.