Stories
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
SPLC organizers spend last hours of election getting out the vote in Georgia
In the video: SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang and Yterenickia Bell, the SPLC’s state director for Georgia, canvassed an apartment complex in Mableton, Georgia, on Election Day. Despite millions of people voting early in Georgia, there were still millions of voters remaining on Election Day who could vote but had not despite the polls…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Balloting goes smoothly as millions of Americans go to the polls
Frances Kennedy picked up her granddaughter, a college student, at 5 a.m. and drove her two hours to make sure she voted in her hometown of Atlanta. Kennedy, a longtime Atlanta resident, had voted early. Her granddaughter, a student at Alabama State University in Montgomery, was voting for the first time and had waited until…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Michelle Obama headlines nonpartisan Georgia rally to turn out first-time voters
Rows and rows of shiny black charter coaches and bright yellow school buses lined the lot outside Atlanta’s Gateway Center Arena on Oct. 29. Their passengers, Georgia high school and college students, spilled out onto the street, forming a line of hundreds mixed in with locals and visitors of all ages who had come to…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Summit encourages faith leaders to challenge white Christian nationalism
Huddled in an elevator at the Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, stood a group of people who had attended an interfaith summit that day on countering hate and election-related violence ahead of November’s presidential contest. The group had assembled to learn about the Christian white nationalist movement and its influence on the…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Indigenous people face voting obstacles from past and ongoing discrimination
Lori Wise and her husband moved from her home state of Oklahoma to Georgia in 1999, but she did not learn of her paternal Ponca Nation ancestry until 2018, when she discovered the identity of her biological parents and met her biological father for the first time in Oklahoma. The following year, Wise met the…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Newbern, Alabama, seats Town Council, looks to move past years-long legal fight
For the first time in four years, the town of Newbern, Alabama, has a legitimately appointed and approved government, with the town’s first Black mayor in its 170-year history at its head. On Oct. 27, Alabama Fourth Circuit Court Judge Marvin Wiggins swore in five new council members to the Newbern Town Council. The five…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Advocates seek aid for unhoused people in Alabama’s ‘Rocket City’
Homecoming weekend at Alabama A&M University is always a busy one in Huntsville. But earlier this month, while undergrads and alums celebrated the big game with parties, concerts and a parade, a much smaller group of people huddled in the shadow of the Interstate 565/Highway 431 interchange, trying to figure out where they were going…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Teen seeks to remove Confederate imagery from Montgomery, Alabama, city flag
Jeremiah Treece, 17, a senior at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School in Montgomery, Alabama, is petitioning the city to change its flag, which features Confederate iconography. Here, he explains the flag’s history and why it’s time for Montgomery, as the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, to leave this symbol of division in the…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
Sapelo Island residents fight to keep Georgia’s last Gullah Geechee community
When Hurricane Helene rampaged up the Atlantic coast last month, it was no surprise for the residents of Sapelo Island that their community lost power in its wake. “We had a six-day power outage,” Reginald Hall, a native of the island who left for several years before returning in 1994, texted after power was restored.…
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- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Black children in Florida face harsher school discipline, new SPLC report shows
Five years ago last month, people across the country were shocked by a video showing the arrest of Kaia Rolle in her Orlando, Florida, school. She was just 6 years old, not even 4 feet tall and weighing about 50 pounds. Her wrists – too small for metal handcuffs – had been zip-tied behind her…
