slavery

December 5, 2019 - As the N.C. Supreme Court decides whether to move a prominent portrait of a slave-owning justice, lower courts are hearing lawsuits involving Confederate monuments. One judge recently signed a controversial settlement order in which UNC agreed to give a pro-Confederate group $2.5 million to care for a statue toppled by anti-racist protesters.

April 11, 2019 - The issue of reparations for slavery is once again getting attention in Washington, with legislation introduced to study the matter getting unprecedented levels of support. Many of the Democrats hoping to unseat President Trump are embracing the concept.

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 26, 2018 - Voters in Southern states are weighing in on ballot measures to expand voting rights, raise the minimum wage, and protect the environment.

September 13, 2018 - In 1868, Southern states held constitutional conventions in which recently freed black men helped eliminate vestiges of the Confederacy and draft progressive blueprints for state government. While some of the provisions survived Jim Crow, conservative politicians today are chipping away at Reconstruction's radical legacy.

August 22, 2018 - Responding to protesters' toppling of the "Silent Sam" Confederate monument on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus this week, the student government's undergraduate executive branch issued this powerful statement praising the action and calling for further steps to ensure that every student feels welcomed.

May 2, 2018 - Despite years of protests by students, the "Silent Sam" Confederate memorial still stands in a prominent place on the campus of UNC's flagship school. This week UNC history grad student Maya Little doused the statue with her own blood in an act she said was aimed at providing needed context. This is Little's statement about her protest.      

January 26, 2018 - A proposed constitutional amendment would give the state legislature control over choosing judges — a power it has not had since the Civil War.

August 17, 2017 - Law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell of Southern University discusses the connections between slavery and mass incarceration in the context of the planned Aug. 19 march in Washington, D.C. The gathering is calling for the 13th Amendment's enslavement clause to be amended to abolish legalized slavery in prisons.