Human Rights

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.

April 16, 2021 - Virginia-based Valley Proteins is one of the largest U.S. rendering companies, turning slaughterhouse waste like blood and bones into profits. Buoyed by the unionizing efforts of Amazon workers in Alabama, the company's drivers are organizing in North Carolina — and they've already won concessions.

April 9, 2021 - A growing number of companies are publicly condemning discrimination against transgender people and taking steps to support trans employees. But some of the same businesses are also funding Southern politicians promoting policies harmful to the transgender community. One standout is AT&T, the telecom giant headquartered in Dallas — also the top corporate contributor to state lawmakers seeking to restrict voting rights.

April 2, 2021 - U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the 1940s and 1950s displaced residents of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, many of whom later settled in Northwest Arkansas. Decades later, they're still fighting for justice for the devastation of their health and homeland, now also threatened by rising seas from climate change. 

March 24, 2021 - In the wake of historic Black Lives Matter protests, Republican lawmakers in Southern states have introduced two dozen bills this year that could lead to new criminal charges for protesters — even peaceful ones. Most Southern states already have at least one such law on the books.

March 23, 2021 - The organizer who pioneered politically transformative get-out-the-vote efforts in Georgia is now using that existing infrastructure to get some of the state's most vulnerable residents vaccinated against COVID-19.

March 17, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the ongoing loss of hospital beds in rural communities across the South. The greatest losses were in Tennessee — among the states that haven't expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The rate of rural hospital closures in non-expansion states is six times greater than in states that expanded the program.