'No end of trouble': The radical organizing of Durham's Jewish cigarette rollers

When North Carolina tobacco companies began manufacturing cigarettes in the 1880s, they needed skilled rollers, so they turned to Jewish immigrants on strike at cigarette factories in New York City. The bosses thought the workers wouldn't dare organize in the union-hostile South, but they were proven wrong. (9/1/2022)

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EPA sued for failing to regulate hundreds of coal ash dumps

Scores of the coal ash landfills that federal regulators have exempted from oversight are located in Southern states, and they're disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color. (9/2/2022)

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REVIEW: The brilliance of Rothman's 'The Ledger and the Chain'

Timothy B. Tyson, a historian of the South, calls Joshua D. Rothman's "The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America" one of the best history books he's ever read. (8/29/2022)

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N.C. Supreme Court limits the power of a racially gerrymandered legislature

The state's Democratic-controlled high court ruled that a legislature found to discriminate against Black voters doesn't have unlimited authority to propose constitutional amendments. The decision caps off a four-year legal battle over amendments approved by voters that mandate voter ID and lower the state's income tax cap. (8/24/2022)

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VOICES: Southern workers are teaching each other how to organize

Taiwanna Milligan, who helped organize a recent strike at the Dollar General store where she works in South Carolina, participated in a series of Worker Power Trainings held by Raise Up members in several Southern communities this summer. She shares what she heard from some of the workers who participated.

Meet Facing South's summer interns

The Institute for Southern Studies offers a summer internship program, and this year's interns were Kevin Gomez-Gonzalez and Sofia Lesnewski.

Born and raised in North Carolina, Kevin is a Latine reporter and an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina's Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Their work covers issues of labor and the intersections of race, class, and gender. Their writing has previously appeared in Enlace Latino NC, NC Policy Watch, and INDY Week.

Sofia is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, studying English and comparative literature, Spanish, and social and economic justice. She previously covered higher education, diversity, and representation at The Daily Tar Heel, and she currently serves as editor of The Journal of Women and Criminal Justice, a national publication for justice-involved women and advocates.

Both Kevin and Sofia have stories in this week's Facing South newsletter. Kevin wrote the index on the movement to defend Atlanta's last remaining forest from a police training facility, while Sofia wrote about the radical labor organizing of Jewish cigarette rollers in 19th century Durham, North Carolina.

Our internship program is made possible in part by contributions from our readers. If you'd like to help support the next generation of movement journalists, donate here.

Defending Atlanta's last forest from 'Cop City'

A proposal to build a $90 million police training facility in an area that's been referred to as the "irreplaceable green lungs" of Georgia's largest city has spurred a grassroots resistance movement that's brought together land defenders and police abolitionists.