Politics

July 1, 2021 - Over 2 million adults — including over half a million essential workers — fall into the Medicaid coverage gap in states that have refused to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act, and most are people of color living in the South. Congressional Democrats from Georgia and Texas recently unveiled plans to work around GOP-controlled legislatures' refusal to authorize broader Medicaid coverage even when facing a deadly pandemic.

June 28, 2021 - Joan C. Browning of West Virginia took part in the 1961 Freedom Rides challenging segregated transportation in the Jim Crow South, and she recently welcomed the Black Voters Matter Freedom Ride for Voting Rights to Charleston. We're reprinting the full text of her remarks drawing on history to suggest paths to a more just future.

June 25, 2021 - A report from the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General found that several Southern states failed to deliver unemployment payments in a timely manner. In Georgia, for example, about 80,000 unemployment applications remain in limbo.  

June 18, 2021 - A 1988 issue of Southern Exposure magazine, the print forerunner to Facing South, reprinted a visionary address by North Carolina-based organizer Mab Segrest calling for an intersectional Southern gay and lesbian liberation movement. We're republishing it in honor of Pride Month.

June 17, 2021 - This Juneteenth, Black Voters Matter will launch a bus tour through Southern states marking the 60th anniversary of the original Freedom Rides that successfully challenged segregation. The tour will promote the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and drive home the importance of confronting voter suppression.  

June 17, 2021 - The Communities Not Prisons coalition has stalled Alabama's plan to work with private prison companies to expand the state prison system, which the U.S. Justice Department has charged with unconstitutional human rights abuses. The victory was won by organizing across geographic, race, and class lines — and by targeting the banks involved.

June 16, 2021 - Home care workers, most of whom are women of color, are among the most underpaid workers in the U.S., and the situation is especially dire in the low-wage South. In North Carolina, care workers recently rallied to call on federal lawmakers to support President Biden's American Jobs Plan, which would increase their pay and on-the-job protections.