We want to ensure harassment-free climates in schools and workplaces, and we want to protect the rights of people with disabilities. What happens when these imperatives collide? Originally published in The Nation. IN JANUARY 2020, DUTCHESS COMMUNITY COLLEGE in New York banned a photography professor named Lowell Handler from its property and declared him unqualified […]
Cumulative Impacts
Originally published in the Border Belt Independent, May 2022. LAST WINTER, AS THE N.C. DEPARTMENT of Environmental Quality (DEQ) considered a new permit for a Robeson County plant that generates electricity by burning poultry waste and wood, it turned to the public for comment. The earful it received was mighty and unanimous. The facility, owned […]
Secrets of the Bovine
In the 1920s and ’30s, cattle were put on trial, then convicted and executed, for being genetically impure. The human eugenics movement was on the rise too. Originally published in Duke Magazine. THE DEFENDANT’S NAME WAS MR. SCRUBB BULL. He entered Magistrate James McElroy Jameson’s makeshift courtroom in Pickens County, South Carolina, walking on four […]
Battle Hymns of the Old South
Down but not out in Alamance County, North Carolina Originally published in The Baffler. BEFORE HE ROUNDED THE CORNER into downtown Graham, North Carolina, the Reverend Gregory Drumwright hushed the hundreds of marchers who had gathered on a steamy July day. He lifted his microphone and offered a morsel of history, some sustenance for the final […]
Reports from Alamance County, North Carolina
Particularly since Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in May 2020, civil-rights activists in the county seat and former textile-mill town of Graham, N.C. have clashed with both neo-Confederates and law enforcement. He is my coverage for The Washington Post. Local stories July 29, 2020: Is Any Protest a Threat to Public Safety? Oct. 31, 2020: […]
N.C. pastor who led Halloween march to the polls is charged with felony assault
Originally published in The Washington Post. Three weeks after two law enforcement agencies used pepper spray to break up a peaceful march to the polls in Graham, N.C., the county sheriff’s office said it would charge the march’s organizer, the Rev. Greg Drumwright, with felony assault on an officer and obstructing justice. The Alamance County […]
Election Week 2020
Coverage for The Washington Post Local stories Oct. 31: N.C. police arrest at least 8, spray ‘pepper-based vapor’ to disperse voter turnout march that included kids Nov. 1: Peaceful march to the polls in North Carolina is met with police pepper spray and arrests With Isaac Stanley-Becker Nov. 3: N.C. law enforcement agencies sued for […]
N.C. law enforcement agencies sued for allegedly intimidating voters
Originally published in The Washington Post on Election Day 2020 DURHAM, N.C. — Civil rights activists in North Carolina sued the leaders of two local law enforcement agencies late Monday, two days after officers broke up a peaceful march to the polls with dispersal orders, pepper spray and arrests. Two lawsuits, filed in U.S. District […]
Peaceful march to the polls in North Carolina is met with police pepper spray and arrests
By Barry Yeoman and Isaac Stanley-Becker. Originally published in The Washington Post. GRAHAM, N.C. — The voters came in black sweatshirts emblazoned with the mantra of the late Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who celebrated “good trouble.” Fists and iPhones raised, they chanted “Black lives matter” and promised “power to the people,” […]
N.C. police arrest at least 8, spray ‘pepper-based vapor’ to disperse voter turnout march
Originally published in The Washington Post GRAHAM, N.C. — Law enforcement officers fired a spray they described as a “pepper-based vapor” that left demonstrators — including children — coughing at an “I Am Change” march for voter turnout. The racially diverse crowd of about 400 had stopped at a Confederate monument in front of the […]
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