Justice

April 7, 2022 - Republican lawmakers in Florida and Georgia passed legislation this year to establish “election police" to fight voter fraud, despite no evidence any widespread fraud has occurred. Voting rights advocates say the measures serve only to intimidate communities of color and further damage Americans' confidence in elections.

March 18, 2022 - More than a century after the first anti-lynching legislation was introduced in Congress by a Black member from North Carolina, lawmakers finally passed a bill that makes lynching a federal crime. Advocates hope that the new law will address the generational damage caused by racial violence and prevent modern-day lynchings from going unpunished.

March 16, 2022 - Satana Deberry was elected as the district attorney for Durham County, North Carolina, in 2018 after running on a progressive platform. She recently testified before a U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee to defend the movement to reform law enforcement, explaining how over-reliance on prosecution and incarceration makes communities less safe.

March 9, 2022 - Organizers are frustrated by Biden giving short shrift to voting rights in his first State of the Union address. In response, they're stepping up efforts to secure federal voting protections as state legislatures across the South continue to pass suppressive voting laws.

March 9, 2022 - Mississippi civil rights organizer Fannie Lou Hamer passed away 45 years ago this month. A recent book and documentary examine her life and work amid a pitched national debate over how to teach and think about U.S. racial history.

March 7, 2022 - As trans youth face a crisis of harassment, violence, and trauma, Republican politicians up for reelection in Texas and other states are launching misleading attacks on them and their families in a blatant attempt to stir up the party's base and win votes. Legal and human rights advocates and the Biden administration are taking steps to protect the lives of these vulnerable young Americans as others press for boycotts.

March 3, 2022 - While reporting on the human rights crisis in Alabama's prisons, journalist Beth Shelburne began corresponding with incarcerated men in the state about their fight to read. She recounts their ongoing battles against censorship inside an irrational system where books and magazines are treated like dangerous contraband.