History

October 22, 2013 - The Virginia-based Tea Party Leadership Fund argues that requiring it to disclose its donors puts them in danger comparable to what NAACP members faced in Alabama in the 1950s. Campaign finance watchdogs beg to differ.

September 23, 2013 - Whites who live in parts of the South once dominated by the slave economy are much more likely than other Southerners to express resentment toward blacks, to oppose affirmative action, and to vote Republican, according to a new study by political scientists at the University of Rochester.

September 11, 2013 - The labor movement needs to build power in the South by undertaking an effort like the historic Southern organizing drive the CIO launched in 1946. A union organizer and a student of labor history offer their blueprint for doing just that.

September 5, 2013 - Inspired by the Moral Monday movement, students across North Carolina are organizing a college tour to raise awareness around election protection, planning a march on the governor's mansion to protest attacks on voting, and launching a group to protect voters from intimidation at the polls.

August 20, 2013 - A union organizer and a third-generation organizer working in the South offer their ideas for building a culture of unionism in the region -- or anywhere the idea of collective development and exercise of power has waned.

July 24, 2013 - "If you know this history," said Rev. William Barber of the N.C. NAACP, "you understand why every North Carolinian ought to be sick to their stomach."

July 4, 2013 - This Independence Day, we revisit one of our favorite holiday-themed readings: the brilliant speech by abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass reminding us of the unfinished work of guaranteeing liberty and justice for all. So what's your favorite reading for the 4th?

June 28, 2013 - A website publicizing details about people arrested in nonviolent protests at the N.C. legislature expanded this week to include salaries of arrestees who are public workers -- and suffered a setback when local officials said they’d no longer take arrestees' mugshots. Meanwhile, private data-gathering efforts in another state are generating controversy over their use for political retaliation.

June 19, 2013 - The Civitas Institute is publicizing the names, residence, political registration, employers, and other details of those arrested at the ongoing NAACP-organized protests at the legislature. The project calls to mind how Southern civil rights opponents once published the names of NAACP supporters in newspapers to encourage retaliation against them.

June 7, 2013 - Human rights advocate Chokwe Lumumba's election this week as mayor of Jackson, Miss. is the result of work by a new Black-led progressive coalition that intends to fight for power in a state too often written off as redneck Tea Party territory.