Stories
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Newbern 2020 Election Timeline
2019: Patrick Braxton, considering a run for office in Newbern, Alabama, rents a house within the town boundaries to establish residency. June 2020: Braxton approaches Newbern Mayor Haywood Stokes III to ask for information to qualify for the Aug. 25, 2020, election. After getting the forms, Braxton seeks help from other mayors for aid in filing correctly.…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Legal efforts to reinstate ousted Black Alabama mayor and council move forward
In 2020, Patrick Braxton was sworn in as the first Black mayor of Newbern, Alabama, in its 170-year history. He ran unopposed, the only candidate who filed the necessary paperwork and fee to qualify for mayor. No one, neither incumbent nor challenger, qualified to run for mayor or any of the five council seats in…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Second Lynn Walker Huntley Social Justice Fellow to join the SPLC this fall
People have always been at the center of Camille Pendley Hau’s work. She was born and raised in Atlanta, and when the city’s commercial sector applauded the completion of the new Mercedes Benz Stadium in 2017 – the most expensive structure built in Atlanta’s history – Pendley Hau couldn’t stop thinking of the residents of…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Georgia ‘teach-in’ highlights effort to transform largest Confederate monument
Of the thousands of monuments and other symbols of the “Lost Cause” scattered across public spaces in the South, one stands out as the most grandiose of all – and the most celebrated by white supremacists: the Stone Mountain Memorial carving, located 16 miles east of Atlanta. The monument’s carving of leading Confederate figures Jefferson…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
- News
SPLC grants support organizations that seek to remove Confederate symbols
Once a month, members of the Committee for Justice, Equality and Fairness (CJEF) meet in the small back room of Sandra Macon’s church to discuss what to do about the problem at the Walton County Courthouse in DeFuniak Springs, Florida. Just outside the courthouse stands a marble pillar erected in honor of “Walton County’s Confederate…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
National Trust for Historic Preservation names Eatonville an endangered site
Fueled by the urgent need to safeguard a threatened centerpiece of American history, the National Trust for Historic Preservation today named Eatonville, Florida – the childhood home of iconic author Zora Neale Hurston and one of the first all-Black municipalities in the U.S. – as one of 11 historic sites in the country most endangered…
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- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Report: Black girls suffer most from policing in Florida school district
When S.D. walked through the halls of her Florida high school, security guards looked at her inappropriately, gaping at her body. “I’m a female with curves,” she said, requesting anonymity. “No one touched me, no one said anything, but the looking. It happened in the halls, outside, walking back and forth in school, multiple times…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
In Supreme Court case, SPLC supports rights of people experiencing homelessness
On a day off from the crush of representing her constituents, you might find Florida state Sen. Rosalind Osgood on a park bench in the sun, her eyes closed. Or you might come across attorney David Peery, a graduate of Howard University and George Washington University Law School, enjoying a Sunday nap on a grassy…
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- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Alabama teen to join SPLC delegation at UN forum on racial discrimination
When it feels like justice is an ocean away, sometimes you have to cross the water. A soft-spoken 19-year-old named CJ Jones and his dad will do just that next week. They will fly from their home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Geneva, Switzerland, to tell the United Nations what officials in CJ’s native state didn’t…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
Celebrating true Southern heritage in April instead of the Confederacy
This April will see Confederate Heritage Month or similar observances occurring in some states. From the first secessionist shots fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865, Confederates fought for slavery and white supremacy. That is Confederate heritage. It is not Southern heritage. Those…
