Human Rights
October 12, 2022 -
For decades, the co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund has led voter organizing campaigns across the South and helped lay the groundwork for Democratic wins in Georgia's 2020 presidential and U.S. Senate elections. She talked with Facing South about mobilizing for the midterms, misconceptions about the South and the region's Black voters, and building a genuine multiracial democracy.
October 5, 2022 -
As part of a group called Seniors Taking Action, Ilene Freedman of North Carolina runs a Giving Circle with The States Project that focuses on electing state lawmakers who will improve people's lives and defend democracy.
September 29, 2022 -
Workers at dozens of Starbucks locations in Southern states have unionized despite the region's harsh anti-union laws and the coffee chain's intimidating tactics, which have included terminations, surveillance, and mandatory anti-union meetings. This week the company announced it would begin bargaining with Starbucks Workers United in October.
September 28, 2022 -
The famed civil rights leader who coined the phrase "environmental racism" in a North Carolina jail recently delivered the Robert R. Wilson Distinguished Lecture at Duke University Chapel in Durham. Titled "Environmental Justice: Past, Present, and Future" and shared here, his talk commemorated the 40th anniversary of protests over toxic waste dumping in a rural Black community that sparked the environmental justice movement.
September 16, 2022 -
On the heels of a 2020 legal settlement with the Georgia city of LaGrange, human rights and immigrant advocates continue their fight against local utility policies in communities across the South that deny service to people who lack Social Security numbers.
September 15, 2022 -
Speaking in response to Jackson's latest drinking water crisis, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) has said that privatization of the city's system is under consideration. But many U.S. communities that privatized their water reconsidered after encountering problems including shoddy maintenance and a lack of promised savings.
September 15, 2022 -
In recent years, the North Carolina Supreme Court has addressed persistent injustices in the criminal legal system, including racism in jury selection. But the court could reverse course if Republicans win a majority this November.
