'We've come this far by faith:' Vaccines, religion, and community in Arkansas
In each of his community spaces, Reverend Kenneth B. Thomas Sr. has seen the casualties of a pandemic that is complicated, multi-faceted, and doesn't have a neat beginning or end.
Media for good trouble.
Liberation lives here.
Southern politics
Overdose deaths are reaching record highs in the South as COVID vaccines take priority
"It's a trauma response. It's a response to stigma and shame and being beaten down and taught that you don't have any worth."
Homelessness and eviction have always been public health crises. The pandemic made them even more deadly.
"On top of everything else, now you've got to find a place where no one will bother you for existing."
Breaking Through COVID: What data can't tell about the South's vaccine rates
The end-goal of any effort to end the pandemic should be the abolishment of a system where collective care is not center, where compassion is not heard, and where people cannot trust their fellow community members to act on the collective's well-being.
A principal leaves his beloved school after an intense year
An exhausting and intense school year has raised fears that principal burnout will drive professionals from the field. David LaViscount, a New Orleans charter school principal, said he was prepared for the hard work of building a new school community, but dealing with the pandemic ultimately made it too hard for him to support his own family.
Arts & Soul
'We have to evaluate the motives of health care institutions'
"Being vaccine-skeptical or vaccine-hesitant is not the same thing as COVID-denial."
'The rest of the world tells us that these bodies are killing us'
The author of 'Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness' in conversation about "the Black fat" and the nonbinary, trans-masculine experience.
In portraits and letters: 'Being free is not the same as freedom'
Lessons on what release from prison really means. Meet a dozen men from Louisiana and Mississippi who served a combined 311 years for crimes they didn't commit.
In Review: 'Can these bones live?'
Black funeral homes were once economic pillars in Black communities. The documentary from Reel South follows legendary embalmer James Bryant and his young queer protégé Clarence Pierce as they care for both the living and the dead.
Race & Place
You're swamped? Join the club.
Climate change is coming for all of us. What the people of the Gulf South need is solidarity, not thoughts or prayers—and certainly not your emails.
'A lifetime of damage' on a creosote plume in Houston's Fifth Ward
Recent public health studies confirm exposure to creosote and other chemicals from a nearby rail yard is responsible for poor health outcomes. When will Texas take action?
Soul City: A Black dream killed just as it was coming true
Floyd McKissick Jr.'s dream is an example of how white supremacy and its twin, anti-Blackness, intervene in the most basic life processes.
For Black cowboys—from inner-city Philly to small-town Texas—horses and riding are a way of life
Photojournalist Ron Tarver spent years photographing people largely ignored in mythic depictions of white cowboys and the American West.
Long reads
Essays & Letters
MORE STORIES
Mellon Foundation announces Scalawag as an inaugural Humanities in Place grantee
Through their new Humanities in Place program, the Foundation will invest $350,000 in Scalawag over the next two years, allowing us to further concretize and grow our transformative work.
Hurricane Ida: How to get and give help on the Gulf Coast
These organizations are offering on-the-ground relief to Gulf Coasters in Louisiana and Mississippi.
Your frontlines lead our headlines.
A prisoner's apothecary: Solitary Gardens reimagines six-by-nine cells
People in solitary confinement and volunteers team up to imagine a world without prisons—and grow plants to feed and heal the world in the process.
Two letters from North Carolina prisons make the same demands—45 years apart.
Read the words of Anne C. Willett in honor of the 46th anniversary of the direct action at NCCCW, and the account of A.L. Harris in honor of survivors of state violence and in memory of the lives of those harmed and killed by police.
Virtual Event: Join Scalawag for Realizing Abolition
Realizing Abolition is an opportunity to gather together with others committed to challenging the existence of prisons in our society
POC-led. Women-run. Southern.
Akwaeke Emezi: 'A dead thing sentenced to life'
Dear Senthuran is its own swampland. It's thick with the muck of existence. It's as much land as it is water, decaying as it wills to live.
Killer Mike's radical lyrics are masking reformist politics
Killer Mike is the media's go-to for thoughts on police reform. At best, his music can be a springboard into liberationist hip-hop. But an issue arises when the press ignores calls for abolition while praising his lyrics like a radical manifesto.