The incalculable cost of cheap chicken—and the hidden industry that shoulders it
Poultry plants, many of which rely on immigrant labor, already had high rates of occupational illness. The pandemic made everything worse.
Media for good trouble.
Liberation lives here.
Southern politics
Qualified Immunity: How 'ordinary police work' tramples civil rights
Two innocent brothers spent 30 years in prison. The law protects the police who put them there.
Abolition made practical
The fight for prison abolition is being won by local people and organizations who are weaving together the frayed fibers of community care.
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.
Prostitution was already illegal in Louisiana. Then Republicans crafted an even more damning law used to target trans sex workers.
The Crime Against Nature by Solicitation statute, passed in an 1980s era of gay panic, unfairly targets queer sex workers to this day. Meet the New Orleans activist working to get the law repealed—and to get its victims' felony records expunged.
Arts & Soul
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.
In Photos: Desde Adentro (From Within)
"All these boys are in the middle of a long learning process and maturation; they experience the same intangible fears as any of us. It is a matter of influencing the values and beliefs they have, rather than corrective measures and punishments."
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.
Race & Place
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.
'Who would want their child to miss everything?'
A Mississippi teenager who's come of age in prison reflects on what he's missed, how he's changed—and how the system should.
To the other 98%: Lessons from the nation's Black male educators
Students at the Morehouse Center for Excellence in Education interviewed Black male educators to learn how they are innovating in the virtual classroom.
Author Anjali Enjeti reckons with Asian American identity in white-dominant culture
South Asian organizer Anjali Enjeti, author of two new books—Southbound and The Parted Earth—discusses the model minority myth, white Evangelical extremism, and developing radically inclusive movements.
Long reads
Field notes
Essays & Letters
MORE STORIES
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
In Alamance County, a battle for racial justice confronts a bloody past and an uncertain future
As racial justice demonstrations erupted in large cities last year, a new awareness reached smaller towns across the country. For many in Graham, located in central North Carolina's Alamance County, the movement brought to light the long history of violence in a town where protesting is now restricted and the fight for the removal of a Confederate monument created a salient battlefield in the national conflict over race, police and power.
Your frontlines lead our headlines.
A Prophet Without Eyes: Pauli Murray's Moment
Pauli Murray is having a moment. The potent but undersung 20th-century Civil Rights activist, legal scholar, poet, and priest suddenly seems to be everywhere—110 years after her birth.
HBCUs are keeping the rest of the South safe
A combination of strict screening practices, off-campus instruction, and additional student support have left HBCUs with some of the lowest COVID-19 transmission rates across college campuses.
In the face of anti-trans bills, 'Mama Gloria' is a blessing
As many Black trans women struggle to imagine life after 40 due to the violence they face, a new documentary by Black filmmaker Luchina Fisher honors the life and work of Black trans activist, elder, and legend Gloria Allen.
POC-led. Women-run. Southern.
The BAmazon Loss and the Road Ahead
What can union activists across the country take away from the high-profile defeat in the union vote at Amazon in Alabama?
The fall and rise of North Carolina's first Black school
C.S. Brown may no longer formally labeled a school for Blacks, but its at-risk students were mostly Black—a symbol of the story education data tell about our Black youth, recognized more for trouble than for promise.