News & Commentary

50 years ago today, in Orangeburg, South Carolina, nine White highway patrolmen opened fire on a group of unarmed Black college students who were peacefully assembled to protest a bowling alley's refusal to allow them service. This use of excessive force killed three students and wounded 27 others.

Many people use a driver’s license or other ID without giving it much thought. We carry it with us when we drive and show it if we get pulled over. We use it to get into a bar, board an airplane, or open a bank account. We use it to rent a car, pick up prescriptions, buy beer, claim a senior citizen discount, or check into a hotel. Sometimes we have to show it to enter an office building or make a purchase using a credit card or check. In some places, like Alabama, we need it to cast a vote.

Darcy Corbitt explains why she's suing the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency for deciding that it is entitled to define, dictate, and regulate her identity.

Thanks for your interest in staying up-to-date during the state legislative session. As the session progresses and more bills move forward, we will continue posting periodic updates. Here are our major highlights.

Although the winter weather threw a wrench into the schedule for the Alabama Legislature this week, some bills did see movement this week. Here are our major highlights:

Some 1.3 million Alabamians – more than twice as many who voted in the primary – turned out to vote in Tuesday’s special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The turnout was extraordinary because it took place in a state that has a well-documented history of trying to suppress the vote of the very group that helped propel Doug Jones to victory.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks got on a bus. After paying her fare, she sat in the “colored” section of the bus, but as the white-only seats filled up, the bus driver asked Ms. Parks and three other people to move. She refused and was arrested. With that, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.

On Election Day 2017, candidates in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Virginia, and New York won on platforms that proactively embraced criminal justice reform or rejected fear-mongering attempts by opponents to label them as soft-on-crime.

A recently leaked FBI “Intelligence Assessment” contains troubling signs that the FBI is scrutinizing and possibly surveilling Black activists in its search for potential “extremists.”