Southern states push new voting restrictions ahead of 2024 elections

Still facing obstacles from previous elections, voters in some Southern states will encounter new restrictions this year as they head to the polls in another consequential election year.

Read more >

Key Southern ballot measures to watch in 2024

Ballot measures on abortion, marijuana, schools, and other issues this year could lead to major policy shifts in the South — and also change 2024 voting dynamics, affecting key races in November.

Read more >

Voting rights journalist Ari Berman on opposing minority rule

Ari Berman, a national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, has covered democracy issues for more than a decade. He talked with Facing South about his new book "Minority Rule," the ongoing attacks on voting, and his hopes for the future of American democracy ahead of the 2024 elections.

Read more>

Before and after Freedom Summer

On the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, read a collection of work from Southern Exposure about the Mississippi Movement and its aftermath, curated by archives editor Olivia Paschal.

Read more >

Keep your 'elegy': The Appalachia I know is very much alive

The GOP's pick of JD Vance as their vice presidential candidate has brought fresh attention to Vance's memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy." Four years after the book came out, writers and activists in the region published "Appalachian Reckoning" as a response, including this essay by 10th-generation Appalachian Ivy Brashear.

Read more >

Remembering Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon, the singer, composer, and scholar who founded the Black performance group Sweet Honey in the Rock, passed on July 16. A long-time friend of the Institute for Southern Studies, we share here two contributions from Reagon that appeared in Southern Exposure magazine.

Read more here and here

Sweet home: Willye B. White

From the Southern Exposure archives, a profile of Olympian Willye B. White, a Black track and field star from Greenwood, Mississippi who won a silver medal in the long jump at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics as a 16-year-old and appeared in the next four Olympic games.

Read more >

VISIT THE SOUTHERN EXPOSURE ARCHIVES!

The Institute's multi-year project to digitize the full run of Southern Exposure magazine is now complete!

On the Southern Exposure webpage, you can access articles and issues from all four decades of the magazine, as well as a collection of anthologies the archives team has curated to highlight some of SE's best work over the years: Corporations, Labor, and the Economy; Democracy in Action; Environmental Justice; Fiction; Poetry; Racism and the Right; The Queer South; and War and Peace.

As I wrote last year following Southern Exposure's 50th anniversary celebration and the launch of the first decade of issues, "These archives provide not just material for historicizing movement-oriented work, journalism and research in the 20th century, but also possibilities for imagining how we might engage in the struggles of our 21st century moment."

We hope that organizers, scholars, students, writers, and all Southerners and South-watchers will visit and find the SE archives interesting, useful, and inspiring.

— Olivia Paschal, Archives Editor

Secure your legacy for justice with FreeWill!

As the Institute plans for the future, we're excited to present a new resource to our readers and friends: FreeWill. FreeWill is a tool that allows you to create a will quickly, easily, and at no cost to you. You can ensure the well-being of your loved ones, and secure your legacy of promoting justice and democracy.

With FreeWill's resources, you can make an optional planned gift to support Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies beyond your lifetime — ensuring a better South for generations to come. Visit here for more information.