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Collectively, we pursue a more liberated South.
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Through journalism and storytelling, Scalawag works in solidarity with oppressed communities in the South to disrupt and shift the narratives that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few. Our values:
- Liberation rooted in self-determination and solidarity.
- Radical imagination and creativity.
- Moving with care and curiosity.
- Abundance in community. Our theory of change:
- Right relation

: We are in a generative, reciprocal relationship with community, organizers, and movements.
- Community-driven reporting: Our reporting and storytelling are informed and driven by the needs of our community including our partners. Our community trusts us to share their stories and as a source of information because of the relationships we've built with them.
- Outcomes: Storytelling or reporting leads to policy changes, support to movement work, narrative shift, increased solidarity and connection, the nourishing of radical imagination, and the creation of pathways to careers in journalism, literature, and the arts for people who have not traditionally had access.
- Impact: Repeated outcomes from Scalawag and other reporting media makers in conjunction with the work of movements leads to transformational change.

04/07/2024

happy 4th

credit: .memes

02/07/2024

from •

"Civil rights activist Medgar W. Evers was born in 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi.

In 1954, he became the NAACP’s first field secretary in the state. His main duties were recruiting new members and investigating incidents of racial violence. He also led voter registration drives and mass protests, organized boycotts, fought segregation, and helped James Meredith integrate the University of Mississippi. Evers was key in collecting witnesses and evidence in the Emmett Till murder case, bringing it to the attention of the nation. In 1963, he was assassinated in his driveway by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. In 1994, during a 3rd trial, De La Beckwith was convicted of killing Evers and was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Evers.

📸 1. and 3. Photograph by Francis H. Mitchell. 2. Photograph by David Jackson. Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture."

It's that time again. Spread the word to your current and formerly incarcerated kin.Send pitches to team@scalawagmagazin...

21/06/2024

It's that time again. Spread the word to your current and formerly incarcerated kin.

Send pitches to [email protected] or via snail mail:

Scalawag Magazine
PO Box 129
Durham, NC 27702

19/06/2024

✌🏾

17/06/2024

We want your q***r poetry.

31/05/2024

from •

" in 1921, one of the deadliest racial massacres in U.S. history began in the thriving Greenwood African American community of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was one in a series of actions of racist violence that convulsed the United States in towns and cities beginning with the period of Reconstruction in the late 19th century.

In Tulsa — as in all these massacres — white mobs destroyed Black communities, property, and lives. More than century after the riot, the people of Tulsa and the nation continue to struggle to reckon with the massacre’s multiple legacies.

Our collection materials help fill the silences in our nation’s memory around events such as the Tulsa Race Massacre and its reverberations, preserving and sharing wider stories of Black communities in Oklahoma, and centering the testimonies of survivors and their descendants.

Swipe to see two of these objects — pennies charred during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and follow the link in our bio to learn more.

📸 1. and 2. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Cassandra P. Johnson Smith. 3. and 4. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Scott Ellsworth."

31/05/2024

In their first essay for Scalawag, Emmy-award winning writer, actor, and comedian ruminates on the myth of the “n*gger,” delivering an insightful analysis alongside thoughtful commentary on “the hood” and its “crash dummies” as they are (mis)represented in online discourse. This essay brims with poignancy, levity, wisdom, and care.

Read it at scalawagmagazine.org

31/05/2024

James Baldwin, Colored Entrance Only, Durham, North Carolina, 1963. Photo by Steve Schapiro

19/05/2024

from •

"May 19th is the birthday of three giants in the struggle for liberation. Yuri Kochiyama, Ho Chi Minh, and Malcolm X were all born on this day, making today a day of monumental importance for the struggle of oppressed people everywhere. All three were shining beacons of revolutionary morality, and today we honor their efforts towards liberation.

Recommended reading:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Selected Ho Chi Minh
Heartbeat of Struggle: the Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama"

15/05/2024

2024 is an election year that marks the culmination of nearly four years of a rapidly expanding repressive fascist state apparatus. This election season, As The South Votes, our region continues to be the nation’s testing ground for the censorship, policing and access barriers that define this post-2020 status quo. It is for this reason that Scalawag’s 2024 electoral coverage exceeds the boundaries of voting, candidate profiles and the presidential election, and centers the legislative sessions, Supreme Court decisions and local policy changes that govern the Southern lived experience—and, by extension, the South’s vote.

Scalawag is accepting pitches on a rolling basis for our “As the South Votes 2024” coverage. We are looking for critical and personal essays covering the proposed bills, recently implemented legislation, grassroots political organizing groups, direct action protests and political candidates that are impeding or advancing justice in the South this election and legislative season.

Please submit all pitches to [email protected]

This includes (but is not limited to) the following topic/issue areas:

-Censorship: libraries and book bans, limiting school curriculums, policing the press, anti-labor unions and anti-protest laws, crackdowns on bail funds and mutual aid work, terrorism laws
-Supreme Court: Coverage of Supreme Court decisions implicating Southern states/jurisdictions in deciding the nation’s future on key political issues
-End of DEI: defunding DEI offices and programs, banning DEI in universities and other institutions
-Post-2020 Carcerality: Expansion of the prison industrial complex, prisoner repression, and investment in police militarization (i.e. construction of Cop Cities), new criminalization laws or efforts to overturn discriminatory arrest laws
-Reproductive Unfreedom: abortion bans and criminalization, contraception access, HIV/STI Stigma, Justice for Survivors
-Anti-LGBTQ+: marriage equality, adoption, legal definitions of sex-gender, bathroom bills, survivor’s justice bills with transphobic/anti-q***r implications
-See more in comments!

12/05/2024

from

09/05/2024

from •

“All of us, each and every one of us has to speak about the plight of the Congolose people That exploitation that is going on in the cobalt mines eastern Congo, in Goma, that exploitation, directly benefits each and every one of us on a day to day basis.” — Hadija Ali, volunteer with via Aljazeera

Follow and support:

Support Congolese-led projects:

Add Congo to your daily actions list:
freecongo.org

Tags for visibility:
***rart

06/05/2024

from •

Happy Birthday, Gloria Richardson (May 6, 1922 – July 15, 2021)

"Richardson was a civil rights activist best known as the leader of the Cambridge movement, a civil rights action in the early 1960s in Cambridge, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore. Recognized as a major figure in the Civil Rights Movement, she was one of the signatories to “The Treaty of Cambridge”, signed in July 1963 with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and state and local officials. It was an effort at reconciliation and commitment to change after a riot the month before.

📸: Black Feminists Taught Me Images "

06/05/2024

Rami Almeghari wrote two important and informative essays shared during last year's Abolition Week: The Bars We Can't See, which featured works from Palestinians living in the world's largest open-air prison. Now Rami is seeking to flee Gaza with his family and they need our support. Please donate to and share this GoFundMe to get them the support they need.

04/05/2024

may the 4th be with you as you continue the good fight

from .apathy

02/05/2024

"Mississippi is a land that I love, and it is one haunted by the burning of churches and the imprisonment and murders of children—including one especially gruesome and infamous murder of a 14-year-old, whose body was dumped into the Tallahatchie, one of the tributaries that overflowed into the Mississippi that winter of 1927. It bears the scars of apartheid all over. I cannot read about the bombing of churches and mosques and refugee camps and hospitals in Gaza and not hear the echoes of history. These are crimes that should shock us. These crimes demand a response and that response should be, bare minimum: stop."

Read this stunning essay by .heglar at scalawagmagazine.org

30/04/2024

Read "Rest Is Not Resistance: On Cancer, Grief, & Audre Lorde" by at scalawagmagazine.org

30/04/2024

from .mag

25/04/2024

from •

"BREAKING—Protesters in Atlanta have established an encampment in the Emory quad to demand that the university divest from Israeli apartheid and the 'Cop City' project.

Their efforts join the movement of anti-genocide protest encampments on campuses across the country.

The protesters’ message to Emory is simple: Divest from death. No Cop City. No genocide."

23/04/2024

On April 17—notably, the anniversary of the failed, anti-communist fueled Bay of Pigs Invasion—Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill requiring K-12 public schools to teach students "the truth" about "the evils and dangers" of communism.

The reality is: There is no Southern culture of resistance without communist politics and struggle, nor is there a greater blueprint for technologies of state repression than the anti-communist strategies advanced by Southern white supremacists to upend radicalism and progressive movements.

We happen to agree with DeSantis on the importance of learning about this subject. So, be it an introduction or a refresher on the (anti-)communist history of the South, we've got y'all covered with a reading list on the "truth about communism."

Get into this reading list curated by our own and at scalawagmagazine.org

20/04/2024

happy 4/20

images from

12/04/2024

“'Maybe we poor welfare women will really liberate women in this country.' — Johnnie Tillmon

Happy Birthday, Johnnie Tillmon (April 10, 1926 – November 22, 1995)! 🎉Tillmon was a Black American welfare rights activist. She is regarded as one of the most influential welfare rights activists in the country, whose work with the National Welfare Rights Organization influenced the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in particular.

In 1963, she founded the Aid to Needy Children-Mothers Anonymous (ANC), one of the first grassroots welfare mothers’ organizations. ANC Mothers Anonymous later became part of the National Welfare Rights Organization. George Wiley, a chemist and civil rights activist, became the latter’s first executive director while Tillmon served as its first chairman. At its peak in the late 1960s, the organization had nearly 25,000 dues-paying members.

📸: Johnnie Tillmon by Brian Lanker. 1988."

from

11/04/2024

"Incarcerated people are running out of ways to keep cool as Texas refuses to install life saving air-conditioning in prisons. After two deaths in Murray Unit prison at the end of June 2023, our windows were nailed shut as workers installed what we've nicknamed 'Fake AC.' After several days of blowing powerful hot air, weakened cool air followed, only lasting a few days before reverting back to hot air, at which point it was turned off. The windows opened as we returned to shameful survival tactics to cool our bodies in the midst of an extreme heat wave."

Read this account of what it was like inside of Texas prisons during last year's heat wave, the second highest summer on record in Texas. Incarcerated writer Kwaneta Harris shares her experience in this personal essay at scalawagmagazine.org.

21/03/2024

from • : "A sustainable future cannot be exploitative, oppressive, and genocidal.

We need climate solutions, we know that. But we also need just solutions and solutions that prioritize human rights.

Sustainability without a sustainable human rights record isn’t sustainable. It’s bound to fail, and it hurts too many people along the way.

There are answers that incorporate human rights, social justice, and care for people as well as the planet. Those are the answers we need to pursue and implement.

Follow to take action 📌"

19/03/2024

Here are Five Black Southerners you should know this Women's History Month

Today, we're highlighting Pauli Murray, Mama Gloria, bell hooks, Odetta Holmes, and Maggie Walker.

You can read more about each of these icons at scalawagmagazine.org

05/03/2024

VP Kamala Harris finally calls for a ceasef!re in Palest!ne after months of active genoc!de... but only for the next six weeks. Very normal.

source:
emphasis ours

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Videos

pop justice X Behind the Music

From Beyoncé to Young Thug to CoComelon, music shapes our understanding of crime and policing. Check out pop justice X Behind the Music to see what we mean: bit.ly/3NidQcG

pop justice channels

The revolution might not be televised, but that doesn't mean we can't critique our way closer to abolition. Tune in June 20-24 for Scalawag's 3rd annual Abolition Week: pop justice. 👉🏿 bit.ly/3tDYEQ6

Introducing: pop justice

Cops are everywhere in pop culture. Woody from Toy Story: a whole sheriff. Winston of New Girl: an awful rookie cop. So we're launching pop justice: a series tackling how media from TV to TikTok upholds copaganda and stalls conversations on abolition: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2022/06/pop-culture-abolition?utm_campaign=scal-social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1654190640

As the South Votes trailer

With new political maps in place that are likely to limit the Black vote, it's voter suppression as usual in the South this election season. But together, Southern organizers know change is coming. Learn how from our forthcoming new season of As The South Votes: https://scalawagmagazine.org/vote/?utm_campaign=scal-social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1651243561

Meet De Colores Radio, Texas' Latinx podcast taking on white supremacy

“I was like, this is the 1800s and you are very happy with capturing these people that are betraying your master rule.” — De Colores Collective host Eva Arreguin on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Read more about how De Colores Radio is covering art, anti-Blackness, voting, queer identities, white supremacy, and more with dry wit and sarcastic humor: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2022/03/de-colores-radio/

Da'Shaun Harrison on the harm of "body positivity"

“Body positivity individualizes something that is bigger than the individual.” — Da'Shaun L. Harrison, author, scholar and Scalawag editor-at-large The audio version of their book, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, came out this month and is now topping must-listen lists, including ours. Read the Q&A they did with us on this book, and then download your copy of the audiobook wherever you do your listening. https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/09/dashaun-harrison-anti-blackness/

"You can't stop trans kids from being trans." On Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill.

On Tuesday, Florida senators advanced what opponents are calling the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. If it becomes law, it’d ban discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in Florida’s primary schools, which advocates fear will endanger LGBTQ+ youth and teachers. In a 2021 survey by The Trevor Project, 42 percent of the more than 35,0000 LGBTQ youth surveyed reported contemplating attempting suicide within the last year. With that data in mind, Equality Florida, an advocacy group working to end LGBTQ discrimination, says the proposed bill is “stigmatizing LGBTQ people, isolating LGBTQ kids, and making teachers fearful of providing a safe, inclusive classroom.” Lee Robertson, an abolitionist and clinical psychology student getting their doctorate at Florida State University spoke at Tuesday’s hearing in opposition of the bill. “Regardless of if this bill passes, you have already done irreparable damage by allowing this bill to exist where trans kids can see it on the news and fear for their lives. You can’t stop trans kids from being trans.” With support from Governor Ron DeSantis, the bill will now be considered by two more Florida Senate committees before it can be presented to the full state legislature. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi all have similar laws on the books, according to GLSEN, a nonprofit group that advocates for LGBTQ students. 📝 Reporting by Noella Williams. Find us on Instagram and TikTok @ scalawagmag if you liked this video.

Cheers to that!

Tonight's the night! Pull up (and pour up🍷) from 7-8:30 p.m. EST to kick it with the Scalawag fam and some of faves, including Aurielle Marie, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, Author, and Da'Shaun L. Harrison, our new editor-at-large. Get your ticket now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scalawags-2021-jubilee-a-southern-ass-evening-of-liberatory-lit-tickets-215724817737?aff=fb

“Let’s pour up to that.” A Kiki with Ko Bragg & Da'Shaun Harrison

“There’s that Toni Morrison advice that if the book that you want written is not written, then you have to go write it.” So that’s exactly what Da'Shaun L. Harrison did. Pull up on Thursday from 7-8:30 p.m. EST to hear the gift of Da’Shaun and Scalawag Race & Place Editor Ko Bragg in conversation. RSVP now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scalawags-2021-jubilee-a-southern-ass-evening-of-liberatory-lit-tickets-215724817737?aff=fb

Our South: Where fiction meets reality

What are you doin' this time next week? Because you could be listening to Scalawag's Race & Place Ko Bragg in conversation with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, Author on her debut short story collection "My Monticello" at our winter jubilee. 🥂 Get a lil preview and RSVP here: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/12/my-monticello/?utm_campaign=scal-social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1639091580

"If you bake one cake, that doesn’t make you a baker, you know what I mean? I made my mom when I was like six. It didn’t come out good. I never baked another cake again, and nobody keeps calling me a baker. Murderer is not your career choice. Killing one person doesn’t necessarily make you a murderer, especially after 20 years of hard work and change, right? And so I think it’s very important to remain objective. And when you’re doing stories and when you use a word like inmate, that’s the word of the state. That’s the word the state needs you to use, in order to dehumanize you and do their job, which is to keep you housed inside of a cell." — Rahsaan Thomas of Empowerment Avenue at a #PressInPrison training we hosted today. Stay tuned for more abolitionist resources on how to work with incarcerated writers.

Mila, a neurodivergent 7-year-old in Texas, is missing school terribly after moving to a virtual program when the state banned mask mandates in schools. Talking with her mom Amy, Mila describes her days now as, "I wake up, do my class, be sad...do my schoolwork and be sad, and then be sadder." Here's more of what parents and kids from across the South told us about the last 18 months of balancing life and school COVID policies: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/11/kids-covid-schools/

In Memphis, Kellogg workers stand up to corporate greed

"Individuals have to stand strong together, in unity in order for corporations to understand that we mean business." We talked to 10 members of BCTGM International Union's Local 252-G chapter striking at the Kellogg plant in Memphis about how it feels to stand up for the future of workers and fight back against a corporate giant. Here's what they had to say: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/11/kellogg-strike-memphis/?utm_campaign=scal-social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1636330020

"Corporate greed is just gonna get greedier and greedier and greedier." We talked to 10 Local 252-G union members participating in the Kellogg strike. Here's what they said: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/11/kellogg-strike-memphis/

As The South Votes: Diving into the data

As The South Votes: Field notes and Q&A

As The South Votes: How Georgia and Texas organizers are reimagining the culture of voting

Introducing: As the South Votes with Anoa Changa

Reenacting the largest slave revolt in history — Scalawag

What does the South mean to you?

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Address

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Alerts

Contact The Business

Videos

pop justice X Behind the Music

pop justice channels

Introducing: pop justice

As the South Votes trailer

Meet De Colores Radio, Texas' Latinx podcast taking on white supremacy

Da'Shaun Harrison on the harm of "body positivity"

"You can't stop trans kids from being trans." On Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill.

Cheers to that!

“Let’s pour up to that.” A Kiki with Ko Bragg & Da'Shaun Harrison

Our South: Where fiction meets reality

In Memphis, Kellogg workers stand up to corporate greed

As The South Votes: Diving into the data

As The South Votes: Field notes and Q&A

As The South Votes: How Georgia and Texas organizers are reimagining the culture of voting

Introducing: As the South Votes with Anoa Changa

Reenacting the largest slave revolt in history — Scalawag

What does the South mean to you?

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