Click here for “The Uncounted,” part of the Evicted & Abanadoned series, HuffPost and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, May 2015. Click here for a follow-up (with a shared byline), “World Bank Fails To Stop Attacks, Arrests Of Villagers Protesting Big Projects,”HuffPost and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, September 2015. Click here for another follow-up, “Is the World […]
Can Moral Mondays Produce Victorious Tuesdays?
North Carolina’s protest movement has galvanized the state’s progressives, but couldn’t stop 2014’s Republican tide. Its leaders say they’re only just beginning. Originally published in The American Prospect. All photos © 2014 by Jenny Warburg. DERICK SMITH ARRIVED AT THE KICKOFF for North Carolina’s 2014 Moral March on a raw February morning. He zipped his […]
Tragedy, Privation and Hope
Joy Boothe’s inspiring journey to Moral Monday Originally published in The American Prospect WHEN JOY BOOTHE SHOWED UP at last week’s Moral Monday rally in her hometown of Burnsville, North Carolina, she was fighting both sleep- and sun-deprivation. Boothe had just driven in from Asheville, 35 miles away, where her husband was recovering from a […]
Court: NC Voting Rights Rollback to Stay In Place
Since taking control of state government in 2011, Republicans rolled back North Carolina’s progressive voting laws. A new regime of fewer voting days and voter ID requirements will be in place for November’s legislative and congressional elections. Originally published in The American Prospect A FEDERAL JUDGE HAS TEMPORARILY authorized North Carolina to implement a sweeping new […]
Courtroom Drama: Voting Rights Paid for in Blood Under Siege
“It was, bar none, the worst legislative process I’ve ever been through,” Rep. Rick Glazier told the U.S. District Court. Originally published in The American Prospect. AT THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT IN WINSTON-SALEM, Rick Glazier, a Democratic state legislator, took the witness stand on Tuesday, the second morning of a hearing on North Carolina’s restrictive new […]
Shifting Tactics, Moral Monday Movement Launches a New Freedom Summer
Fifty years after the murders of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman, North Carolina activists move from civil disobedience to big voter mobilization push.. Originally published in The American Prospect. All photos © 2014 by Jenny Warburg. “I NORMALLY WEAR CUFF LINKS,” the Rev. William Barber II told the 75 activists, black and white, who filled the […]
Moral Monday Movement Gears Up for Round 2
As the North Carolina state legislature reopens on May 14 with no ideological reversal in sight, the Monday takeovers of the rotunda will resume. So, likely, will the arrests. Originally published in The American Prospect. ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, THE NORTH CAROLINA legislature will open its 2014 session. It will be hard for the Republican majority to […]
Reports from Moral Monday
During 2014, I reported on North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement, a faith-based organizing effort that is becoming a national model. The movement is spearheaded by the state NAACP with broad support from churches and issue-based organizations, including women’s, immigrant, environmental, LGBT, and labor groups. Most of the articles were published online by The American Prospect, illustrated by […]
The Death and Life of Detroit
Neighborhood groups are bringing the blighted city back, one block at a time. Will City Hall stand in their way? Originally published in The American Prospect. A SHIVERING KNOT OF COLLEGE STUDENTS stands outside Motor City Java House as John George unlocks the front door. It’s 15 degrees in Detroit on a February morning, and […]
Wealth for Everyone
Immigrants in Durham, N.C. had become easy targets for robbers. The community’s response: start its own wildly successful credit union. Originally published by One Nation Indivisible. NOT LONG AFTER HE ARRIVED in Durham, North Carolina in 1996, Marcelino Varela learned a lesson that would prove valuable in his adopted city: Always be ready to sprint. He […]
