Stories
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Federal budget cuts will hurt most Americans but make rich people wealthier
Editorâs note: This is the sixth story in the âCuts & Consequencesâ series about the effects that federal spending reductions would have on people living in the Deep South. When Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term in office on Jan. 20, he immediately began taking an ax to the countryâs regulatory agencies…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Farmers not feeling the love as federal program cuts, tariffs threaten income
Editorâs note: This is the fifth story in the âCuts & Consequencesâ series about the effects that federal spending reductions would have on people living in the Deep South. Rafael Guerrero and his four brothers had worked as agricultural harvesters their whole lives. But as the world was coming out of its COVID-19 bubble in…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
HUD cuts terrify people struggling to afford housing, and their advocates
Editorâs note: This is the fourth story in the âCuts & Consequencesâ series about the effects that federal spending reductions would have on people living in the Deep South. For 10 years, Amanda Smith bounced between friendsâ living room couches, her motherâs home, apartments and prison. Suffering with substance use disorder for 25 of her…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Many will suffer, some will starve if SNAP federal food program is cut
Editorâs note: This is the third story in the âCuts & Consequencesâ series about the effects that federal spending reductions would have on people living in the Deep South. There are days when Andrew Sanders walks miles for a hot meal from a soup kitchen. He walks throughout the summer months when temperatures begin their…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Head Start, a lifeline for families with children, faces federal funding cuts
Editorâs note: This is the second story in the âCuts & Consequencesâ series about the effects that federal spending reductions would have on people living in the Deep South. The path Sanquinn Jackson and his daughter followed from day care to Head Start began as a âdark before the dawnâ story. Jacksonâs daughter came home…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Medicaid funding cuts may cause ripple effects on health care across the nation
Editorâs note: This is the first in the âCuts & Consequencesâ series of stories about the effects that federal spending cuts would have on people living in the Deep South. During an annual exam last year, doctors spotted a mass on the abdomen of Angelica McCainâs 10-year-old daughter. They were sent immediately to the emergency…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Struggle for control of public libraries in full swing across the Deep South
No one used to envision libraries as battlefields. But in 2025, thatâs what they have become. Across the South over the last decade, control of what happens on bookshelves has turned into a pitched battle, with white supremacist and Christian nationalist groups on one side facing off against an unlikely coalition of progressives, educators, Black…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Changes in tone, intent mark 60th Anniversary Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee
For the last six decades, people have returned to the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge each year. They have come to remember the pain and suffering early Civil Rights Movement foot soldiers endured. The 60th Anniversary Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee, a weeklong event, commemorated March 7, 1965, when marchers were brutally beaten by white Alabama…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
60 years after Bloody Sunday, legacy of martyrs guides fight for voting rights
Sixty years ago today, hundreds of ordinary Americans came together for one of the most historic protests in this nationâs history. They met in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge with an inflexible mission: to get the Voting Rights Act (VRA) passed and enshrine Black peopleâs right…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
60 years after Bloody Sunday, foot soldiers address current threats to democracy
If she hadnât been Black, Lynda Blackmon Loweryâs mother would have lived. Thatâs what a then-7-year-old Lowery heard from the adults around her on Sept. 19, 1957. âThat was the day I found out what hate really was,â Lowery said. Her mother had experienced complications during the birth of one of Loweryâs younger siblings, and…
