Demographics

October 26, 2018 - In South Carolina, social worker Marlanda Dekine uses poetry to open up dialogue and break down barriers that divide her community.

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.

September 24, 2018 - Will the problematic process for awarding aid that was documented after Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Maria in Puerto Rico repeat itself in the Carolinas in Florence's wake — and will other funders be ready to fill the gap?

September 20, 2018 - The pain and suffering caused by disasters do not affect all communities equally.

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.

June 22, 2018 - In the current moment of moral clarity over the immigration crisis, Bob Libal, executive director of Texas-based Grassroots Leadership, sees an opportunity to demand fundamental transformation of a system that criminalizes people of color.

June 8, 2018 - Muslims and immigrants are among the most vulnerable groups, not just in the U.S., but globally. As a human rights activist and attorney, Azadeh Shashahani has worked for over a decade to combat attacks against these communities and to organize them to build power. 

June 7, 2018 - Two Southern communities that once embraced a federal program that lets local police enforce federal immigration law signaled their rejection of it in recent sheriff elections. To see which communities have been involved in the program, we mapped state and local participants nationwide and over time.

May 25, 2018 - Because 90 percent of those who fall in the Medicaid coverage gap reside in the South, thousands of Southerners have already died because of a lack of health care access. Now Southern states are beginning to adopt Medicaid work requirements that will strip many of their health care coverage. 

May 22, 2018 - Speaking at a protest in North Carolina this week as part of the new Poor People's Campaign, Zainab Baloch juxtaposed her Islamic faith tradition's teachings about empathy with the violence and poverty experienced by her fellow Muslim Americans and North Carolinians.