Stories
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
‘No Jim Crow Maps’: Voters push back against gerrymandering at ‘All Roads’ rally
Thousands of people massed in front of the white marble steps leading up to the Alabama Capitol. Demonstrators stretched down Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, looking for shade as the warm spring sun passed its apex, eliminating the cool shadows on the street. But this wasn’t the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the launch of…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Civil Rights Memorial Center opens Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley exhibit
Just a few feet into the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley: Let the World See exhibit sits an old-fashioned, black rotary telephone on a small, wooden display table. It’s heavy, with creamy white numbers on the shiny black enamel finish of its dial. It feels solid in your hand when you heft the receiver. Putting…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Secret negotiations to sell Eatonville property outlined in SPLC lawsuit
Residents in Eatonville, Florida, were left reeling when in September they learned that the heart and soul of their historic community — more than 100 acres of land that once housed a sprawling school campus modeled on what was then Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute — was set to be sold right out from under…
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- Teaching Hard History
Confronting Hard History at Montpelier
Episode 12, Season 1 This podcast episode engages three people — Christian Cotz, Price Thomas and Patrice Preston Grimes — who helped develop and promote the Montpelier exhibit to discuss the project and the educational programs for integrating slavery and its legacy into the story of the founding of the nation and the drafting of…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
VoteRiders assists voters in obtaining ID, allowing them to register and vote
Craig Watkins wanted to vote in the 2024 election. But he had no identification. A former aircraft mechanic, he was unable to work due to heart, spinal and other medical conditions that required numerous surgeries. He lived on workplace disability for a few years, but that and his employer-provided health insurance ran out in 2023.…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
University of Alabama closes student magazines, prompting free speech lawsuit
On the Monday following Thanksgiving, University of Alabama (UA) graduate student Gabrielle Gunter opened a text message from the Office of Student Media (OSM). It was the first week of December, a time college students refer to as dead week, when they begin a staggered shuffle back to the graveyard of emptied buildings and dormitories…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
A timeline of events in Eatonville, Florida
Founded in 1887 during Reconstruction, Eatonville, Florida, was one of the first towns in the U.S. to be incorporated by people who were freed from slavery. The community near Orlando is one of fewer than 200 Black settlements that became all-Black incorporated communities with autonomous Black city governments. Today, “The Town That Freedom Built,” is…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Georgia residents fight rail spur that would carve up land of Black families
When Mark Smith brought his fiancée, Janet Paige, for a visit to the farm where he was born and raised in Hancock County, Georgia, doubt and apprehension clouded her mind, despite the sunshine that blanketed the rolling green pastures around her. Smith’s parents lived in a farmhouse just outside of Sparta on 600 acres of…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Wreath-laying ceremony honors fallen martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement
The event marked the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the most violent day of the Selma-to-Montgomery march that would shock the nation and catalyze the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed racial discrimination in voting.
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- Teaching Hard History
Slavery in the Supreme Court
Episode 11, Season 1 Building on the discussion of “Slavery in the Constitution,” historian Paul Finkelman examines the connections among the Constitution, the Supreme Court, politics and slavery. This episode offers insights into the ideologies and tensions that shaped the United States, led to the Civil War and continue to affect our nation today. (This episode…