Justice
October 19, 2016 -
Seventy years ago this week in South Carolina, the Southern Negro Youth Congress convened the largest human rights gathering the region had ever seen. The S.C. Progressive Network is holding a public symposium on Oct. 22 looking back at that historic event. To mark the occasion, we share author and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois' convention address, one of his last major speeches and considered one of his best.
October 7, 2016 -
Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of transgender citizens lack updated identification. Consequently, tens of thousands of those living in states with strict voter ID laws — most of them in the South — are at risk of disenfranchisement, according to a new report from The Williams Institute.
October 6, 2016 -
On what would have been the 99th birthday of Mississippi voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, we recall her untimely death from heart disease at the age of 59 — a testament that denying a group of people political power is literally hazardous to their health.
October 4, 2016 -
This Oct. 5 marks 100 years since the birth of Stetson Kennedy, the Florida writer and human rights activist who died in 2011 at the age of 94. The nonprofit foundation he launched while still alive is marking the occasion with a series of events that start this week with a biographical drama of Kennedy's life — and what a life it was.
September 30, 2016 -
Continued instances of police brutality reinforce the reality that African Americans are still deprived of basic citizenship and constitutional rights in the United States.
September 23, 2016 -
The predominantly poor, African-American community in Alabama that became the dumping ground for coal ash spilled in the 2008 TVA disaster in Tennessee is embroiled in an ongoing fight for environmental justice — and there's now an opening for the public to weigh in.
September 16, 2016 -
The cost of boycotts and cancellations in response to a controversial law that discriminates against LGBT people is climbing, with top college sports leagues this week announcing they're pulling events from the state. A Facing South analysis of these and other economic hits from the law puts total damages so far at well over $200 million.