When Courtney Patterson was born on his family’s farm in Lenoir County, North Carolina, 80 years ago, he was fortunate that a country doctor recorded his birth, ensuring that he would have a document later. “But many other people who grew up with me didn’t even have that,” Patterson recalled. Babies were usually delivered at […]
South Carolina
Posted inCulture, History, LGBTQ, Politics & Policy
As Chicago Celebrates Jesse Jackson’s Life, Those He Inspired Confront What’s Next
Jeanette Taylor, the alderwoman of Chicago’s 20th Ward, first met the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 2012. At the time, she was an organizer with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, and her executive director insisted that she meet him. Taylor was nervous: She knew his national stature, his speeches, his mystique — and “sometimes when you […]
Posted inCourts, Culture, History
S.C. Court Victory Grants Gullah Geechee Temporary Access to Blocked Cemetery
Julia Scott is disappointed. Despite a judge granting her and other Gullah Geechee residents in St. Helena Island, South Carolina, access to the centuries-old Big House Cemetery, they must give the property owners — who put up a gate to block the entrance — written notice first. “It’s a start, but I am not pleased […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
A Rural S.C. County Quietly Approved a $2B Data Center During the Winter Storm
As a rare winter storm bore down on South Carolina, bringing conditions that historically paralyze the state for days, local officials in a rural county quietly pushed through a massive $2.4 billion data center without most residents knowing it was even on the table. “There was a public meeting, which most were unaware of,” Jessie […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Politics & Policy, Rural Issues
After a White Town Rejected a Data Center, Developers Targeted a Black Area
In December, on a two-lane road not far from the ACE Basin, a protected ecosystem and wildlife refuge in South Carolina, Paul Black drove past St. Paul AME Church and the cemetery where his wife’s grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-grandmother are buried, then slowed as the trees opened onto the piney tract. Black is an environmental […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
The Voting Rights Act Turns 60. Its Future Has Never Looked More Fragile.
Khadidah Stone will never forget the day in 2023 she learned that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld voting rights in her home state of Alabama. She was in a store when her phone buzzed, flooded with messages. “I was standing in the aisle crying,” she recalled. “And the guy at the front of the store […]
Posted inCulture, History
South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee Are Denied Their Right to Bury Their Loved Ones
For generations, Mary Mack’s family has offered free burial plots to the bereaved families on St. Helena Island. It’s an ancestral calling and a tradition. Spanning 64 square miles, the island on the coast of South Carolina is home to one of the largest remaining Gullah Geechee communities in the southeast U.S. Surrounded by creeks, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Some Mother Emanuel Families Say the Focus on Forgiveness Has Cost Them Justice
Malcolm Graham says that his sister’s body was still in the morgue when he noticed that people were rallying around the importance of forgiving her killer. A librarian who loved her community, Cynthia Graham Hurd was one of the nine Black worshippers who were fatally shot on June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration
The Case of Brittany Martin: Punished Twice for the Same Incident
After spending more than two years in two different prisons in two different states, Brittany Martin believed her fight with the criminal legal system was finally over. She walked out of a South Carolina prison just before Thanksgiving, reunited with her family, and began to rebuild her life. But just three weeks later, the 37-year-old […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Technology
America’s Digital Demand Threatens Black Communities with More Pollution
Ninety years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and South Carolina Gov. Ibra Blackwood worked together to bring electricity to rural South Carolina. But to build the power plant that would make it happen, they destroyed the homes of 900 Black sharecropping families. With them, 6,000 graves — including those of formerly enslaved people — were […]