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I grew up against a backdrop of white evangelical power. Florida's new CRT ban means even more Black students will, too.
Media for good trouble.
Liberation lives here.
Southern politics
White reporters: It's time to pop your parachute and share your byline
Erica Hensley reflects on why more white journalists should also shift away from using people like farmer Teresa Springs solely as sources—and democratize the byline instead.
Contrary to popular belief, healthcare in prison is far from free. Sometimes, it can cost your life.
Seven states in the nation—all in the South—prohibit those in prison from making money yet still charge medical fees. The physical and financial costs can follow incarcerated workers for years.
This couple wants you to know that conjugal visits are only legal in 4 states
There are only four U.S. states that currently allow conjugal visits. Couple Steve Higginbotham and Jordana Rosenfeld discuss the rules strangling intimacy on the inside.
Virginia was primed to teach Black history. Then the nation's first anti-critical race theory governor took office.
Governor Glenn Youngkin banned 'divisive' curriculum in Virginia. Students and teachers say 'there's a complete lack of clarity' on what that even means.
Abolition, popular culture, and justice: introducing 'pop justice'
"We did not come out of the womb abolitionists, but many of us feel born into this work. And as we push back against the prevailing, popular narratives about cops and prisons, we also want to make abolition more accessible."
Arts & Soul
Longtime Memphis rapper Princess Loko died in obscurity. Will a Beyoncé feature grant her the 'Renaissance' she's overdue?
"It's like she knows they're looking for her to slip up, to linger just a little too long. Like she's telling them, 'I know you're waiting for me, but I already left.'"
Out of the Shadows: The Queer Life of Artist Beauford Delaney
Revered by Georgia O'Keeffe, James Baldwin, and many more, queer Southern painter Beauford Delaney was almost lost to history. Black arts organizers are recovering his legacy for audiences from Knoxville to Paris.
The abolitionist podcast that reveals how little you know about prison
For something realer than any episode of Orange is the New Black, check out Teleway 411, a new podcast on queer life in prison from A.B.O. Comix.
'I don't want people to judge me by the music that I rap.' How RICO threatens freedom of speech
From inside a Mississippi prison, Lil Mobb shares new songs and a desire to not be judged by the music he raps.
'Impact of an Icon': Grieving Young Dolph in South Memphis
Up and coming rapper South Memphis Babyface reflects on losing Young Dolph, "somebody I looked up to, somebody that inspired the world."
Race & Place
Black elders saved this couple's Mississippi farm. Now they're harvesting ancestral techniques—and tomatoes
Mississippi is home to the most Black farmers—they're also aging and retiring the fastest.
A grammar for grief: Love, loss, and the limits of language
Relationships are a shared language between two people. But what happens when one person dies? First-generation Georgian Mele Girma uses her struggles communicating in Amharic to articulate a new relationship to grief and…
What the history books won't tell you about abolition
From the Quakers to the Black Panthers to your neighborhood sex workers, as long as there's been police, communities have created their own systems to replace them.
'An unmanned, evil environment': Ashley Diamond and other trans women on life inside prison
From understaffing to "the meat show" to the art of pretty-making in prison, trans women share the realities of life inside prison.
I was on The First 48. Your true-crime obsession is based on lies.
After 12 years of seeing false narratives play out about him on The First 48, Demetrius Buckley calls out true crime for what it really is: exploitation that reruns peoples' worst moments for…
