History
June 4, 2020 -
Herbert Lee Wright passed away at age 92 last month in Arizona from complications related to the coronavirus. Though he doesn't appear prominently in U.S. history books, he played a critical role in shaping the modern Civil Rights Movement as the NAACP's national youth secretary from 1951 to 1962, defending students who participated in sit-ins and criticizing older leaders who wanted to end the protests.
June 3, 2020 -
The organizing drive at HCA Healthcare's Mission Hospital in Asheville is National Nurses United's largest labor campaign ever undertaken in a state with a long history of hostility to unions. A win could help shift the power dynamic in North Carolina and the rest of the South.
May 24, 2020 -
Durham, North Carolina-based peace, labor, civil rights, and human rights activist and organizer Raymond Lee "Bro Ray" Eurquhart died on March 30. In this excerpt of a 2002 oral history interview, he recounts his early political education and organizing while serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War.
May 13, 2020 -
The former South Carolina state legislator, attorney, and CNN analyst spoke with Facing South about his new memoir, the intergenerational scars of racial violence, and what effective political organizing looks like in the South.
March 20, 2020 -
When the Democratic primaries shifted from overwhelmingly white states in the Midwest and New England to Southern states with large African-American populations, so did the outcomes. But African-American voters in the South are not a monolith, and there's a significant divide between older and younger black voters.
March 13, 2020 -
Three Democratic presidential candidates quit the race right before Super Tuesday but after early voters had already cast ballots for them. Ranked-choice voting could prevent citizens from feeling like they wasted their votes — but it's not without its problems.
February 14, 2020 -
Now under Democratic control, Virginia's legislature is rushing to pass progressive laws. But the recent failure to repeal a state law that undermines organized labor shows what such policies are up against in Southern states. Meanwhile, Tennessee's GOP-controlled legislature wants to enshrine anti-unionism in the state constitution.
