reconstruction
April 22, 2021 -
A Mississippi city challenged a medical marijuana amendment that was overwhelmingly approved by the state's voters last year because of how the signatures to put it on the ballot were counted. A ruling in its favor would also end a new campaign to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions, along with any future amendment efforts.
March 24, 2021 -
U.S. senators are currently considering whether to eliminate, reform, or protect the filibuster. The parliamentary procedure that gives the minority outsized power has a long history of being used to undermine civil rights legislation — and it now threatens to derail a bold Democratic agenda that includes voting rights and other pro-democracy reforms.
October 30, 2020 -
The South is where most Black Americans live, but the region has sent just one Black senator to Congress since Reconstruction. That could change in 2020.
April 10, 2019 -
Though better known these days for erecting statues to Confederate veterans during the Jim Crow era, the United Daughters of the Confederacy also promoted white supremacist Lost Cause propaganda through their campaigns to control history textbooks used in the South's public schools. That miseducation continues to haunt our politics today.
October 31, 2018 -
When Southern state constitutions were rewritten during Reconstruction, the drafters created new limits on lawmakers and took the power to choose judges, governors, and local officials from politicians and gave it to the voters. But today, some state legislatures are chipping away at these checks and balances.
October 26, 2018 -
Voters in Southern states are weighing in on ballot measures to expand voting rights, raise the minimum wage, and protect the environment.
October 11, 2018 -
After the Civil War, new state constitutions drafted with the help of freedmen required former Confederate states to establish their first public school systems. But 150 years later, education advocates are still fighting to ensure that Southern states live up to their mandate to offer every student a decent education.
