southern history

September 2, 2026 - A leading scholar of Black social movements in the South talks with Facing South about the central role of labor, lessons from our past, and how to confront escalating attacks on history itself.

August 21, 2015 - Former Institute for Southern Studies journalist and researcher Jordan Green reflects on Julian Bond's enduring vision and legacy of linking ideas to action for change in the South.

August 12, 2015 - An N.C. State University professor has restored old reel-to-reel tapes from a public library in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, proving that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. first uttered his renowned "I Have A Dream" refrain in the eastern North Carolina city in 1962, nine months before his historic speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

September 24, 2014 - A new searchable website features 175,000 photographs collected during the New Deal era, offering a compelling portrait of life in towns across the South and country.

June 27, 2014 - This week hundreds of people gathered in Mississippi at a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, a civil rights project that changed not only Mississippi and the South but the lives of participants.

January 31, 2014 - The South's rich musical and cultural traditions, as well the harsh realities of racist violence and injustice in the region, defined the artistic and political outlook of Seeger, who passed away on Jan. 27.

December 8, 2011 - At a major conference in North Carolina next March, the Art Pope-funded Civitas Institute has invited a lead speaker best known for pushing a constitutional amendment making it easier for states to secede from the U.S.A.