durham

June 18, 2020 - Police funding across 47 of the South's largest cities has risen as a share of total expenditures in the past three decades, even as funding for other essential services has plateaued. With city councils planning their 2021 budgets, citizens are demanding a reallocation of those funds.

June 5, 2020 - Demonstrators protesting police brutality in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd are occupying highways that were built by destroying black communities.

October 17, 2019 - At a recent affordable housing summit in North Carolina, local officials discussed how to prevent displacement and gentrification despite being hamstrung by conservative state governments.

August 30, 2018 - CoreCivic's Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, has become infamous for its poor living conditions. A group of elected officials from Durham, North Carolina — all women of color — recently traveled to the rural facility to learn more about what their constituents face if arrested by ICE, and to consider how to prevent that from happening.

February 16, 2018 - People who have not been convicted of any crime languish in jails simply because they can't afford to post bail. To address the injustice, several Southern cities have reformed their bail policies — and organizers in one North Carolina community are trying to make their city next.

January 29, 2018 - With controversy still raging over memorials to the Confederacy, some state legislatures are taking steps to protect them — while some cities are finding creative ways to skirt those laws.

September 8, 2017 - Following President Trump's decision to phase out the Obama-era DACA program that spared from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, there's a renewed urgency to pass the federal Dream Act, which would offer them a path to citizenship — and Southern lawmakers may provide the key votes needed.