racial disparities

May 19, 2020 - A new analysis by Facing South finds that counties with prisons and meatpacking plants are particularly vulnerable to intense COVID-19 outbreaks. So are the region's majority-black counties.

May 6, 2020 - Across the country, COVID-19 is impacting black people disproportionately. Many worry the disease could wreak havoc in the South, home to most black Americans, as several Southern states start reopening.

April 10, 2020 - The Southeast Crescent Regional Commission was created in 2008 to provide economic development assistance to Black Belt states but has never received its full appropriation from Congress — even while its counterpart covering whiter, richer Northern states has. With Black Belt communities being ravaged by the pandemic, it's past time for action.

February 13, 2020 - Sharpe recently won his release from a North Carolina prison after serving 25 years for a murder he did not commit. He knows his story is not an anomaly — and he is using it to fight for systemic change. 

October 10, 2019 - Reed, who is African-American, was convicted in 1998 of raping and murdering a white woman based on DNA evidence — but he says they were having a secret affair, which the woman's cousin confirms. The case fits a pattern of questionable convictions of Black men for crimes against whites in Texas.

September 12, 2019 - The more intense hurricanes now developing due to human-driven global warming are causing widespread pain throughout the U.S. South. But current policy choices mean some communities suffer more than others — and that environmental injustice will be among the topics addressed during this month's climate strike and U.N. climate summit.

July 31, 2019 - A recent study found that judges in North Carolina and two other states hand down longer sentences during their re-election campaigns. It also confirmed that judges in some states treat black defendants more harshly, with the disparity most pronounced in Alabama.