Witness Archives – Scalawag

Cycling History: The Selma to Montgomery Bike Ride on the 60th Anniversary

by Angela Hollowell March 6, 2025April 9, 2025

On Feb. 22, 2025, cyclists gathered to commemorate one of the most pivotal moments in civil rights history by riding the 51-mile-long route from Selma to Montgomery. This cycling journey, following the footsteps of those who marched for voting rights in 1965, offers a unique perspective on both historical preservation and current infrastructure challenges. Biking […]

Illustrative header for Liberation Lineages, a photo series by Briana Blueitt

Liberation Lineages

by Briana Blueitt March 4, 2025March 4, 2025

grief

Grief is in the kitchen

by Scalawag Editors December 26, 2024December 23, 2024

grief

Grief doesn't celebrate the holidays

by Scalawag Editors December 23, 2024December 23, 2024

Who’s Keeping Our History Alive? Black Preservation in South Florida

Who's Keeping Our History Alive?: Black Preservation in South Florida

by Cordell Jones December 5, 2024December 5, 2024

We Are The BreadCrumbs: What Trans Alabamians Already Know About The Election

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

We Are The BreadCrumbs: What Trans Alabamians Already Know About The Election

by T.C. Caldwell and Jose Vazquez November 4, 2024November 4, 2024

On Being Undocumented in Houston’s Gaza Solidarity Student Movement

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

On Being Undocumented in Houston's Gaza Solidarity Student Movement

by Anonymous October 31, 2024October 31, 2024

Florida’s LGBTQ+ community defies queer repression with advocacy and preservation

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Florida's LGBTQ+ community defies queer repression with advocacy & preservation

by Cordell Jones October 30, 2024October 30, 2024

SCALAWAG UPDATES

MAAD: A New Media Alliance Uplifts Movement Journalism

by Lara Witt and Maya Schenwar March 13, 2024March 13, 2024

Holiday Season—Episode 4 of Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, Season 2: Seasons of Change. Listen and read along with the podcast transcript. When Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanza and family gatherings of all kinds—the musical, cultural, food traditions—collide against a backdrop of losses, challenges, and major life shifts, the holidays can be a confusing time to welcome grief back home.

Holiday Season

by Nnenna Freelon December 14, 2023December 14, 2023

In this episode of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon pleads with the moon, the sun, and the leaves about how to get in touch with her beloved Phil again. If grief isn’t linear, then maybe sorrow is more than a season—perhaps it’s a portal to the unknown.

The World Since You Left

by Nnenna Freelon December 12, 2023December 14, 2023

The World Since You Left—Episode 3 of Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, Season 2: Seasons of Change. Listen and read along with the podcast transcript.

Ashes, Ashes

by Nnenna Freelon December 7, 2023December 14, 2023

Nnenna Freelon, the voice behind Great Grief, shares her family recipe for sweet potato pie, memories of her late grandmother, and how she has found ways to cope with the grief that always seems more present around the holidays—through baking.

SCALAWAG UPDATES

On grief and sweet potato pie: A holiday meditation

by Nnenna Freelon November 29, 2023November 29, 2023

The changing seasons are an apt metaphor to talk about the shedding, withering, and falling away that accompanies the most painful parts of grief. Nnenna Freelon takes us on a walk through the woods to contemplate autumn and the possibility of renewal.

Falling

by Nnenna Freelon November 28, 2023December 14, 2023

Elena Kiejliches, featured on 'Snapped' in 2004, reveals how her story was twisted to perpetuate harmful stereotypes about women's violence.

'It's not a story—it's a life:' A look at Snapped, from the inside

by Elena Kiejliches and Molly Hagan November 21, 2023November 21, 2023

A wife for nearly 40 years, Nnenna Freelon now wonders what to make of the term widow when she still feels the significance of her marriage well after her husband's death in Black Widow, the final installment in the season of Great Grief, Wailing Women.

Black Widow

by Nnenna Freelon November 21, 2023November 28, 2023

Hair holds our history, personality, identity—and our grief. In episode 3 of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon visits her mother’s beauty salon, where generations of Black women have gathered to discuss their hairstory—the grief over it, and the grief under it.

Hairstory

by Nnenna Freelon November 21, 2023November 28, 2023

In this November 2005 file photo, Larry Greene, public information director of the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, demonstrates how a curtain is pulled between the death chamber and witness room at the prison in Lucasville, Ohio. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File) Author Keith LaMar's execution date was moved to 2027 after 30 years on Death Row in Ohio, awaiting the death penalty.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

A Death Row Reprieve: One man's bittersweet reflection

by Keith LaMar November 16, 2023November 15, 2023

Banned Kamp: All Boys Aren't Blue, by George M. Johnson.

The queer survival and coming-of-age book I needed as a child

by KB Brookins November 14, 2023November 14, 2023

The weather bears witness: On calamity, rebirth, and Blackness in the face of climate crisis and the chaos of the natural world. "Perhaps in every wind roaring, in every storm raging, our ancestors are not only watching over us, but watching out for us."

Emergence

by Cherise Morris September 28, 2023September 28, 2023

No woman makes it through life without a sister. Through faith, family, and struggle, we inhabit a deep solidarity that allows us to hold one another close, even at the very end. In episode 2 of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon walks us through her journey of losing her sister, Debbie. Listen and read along with the podcast transcript.

Sister Sister

by Nnenna Freelon September 27, 2023November 13, 2023

Photographer Justin Hardiman, a collaborator with Jasmine Williams and Sarah Jené’s 'How We Get Over: We Grow On' project at the Mississippi Museum of Art, shares stunning portraits and excerpts from his audio-visual project, 'The Color of Grief.'

The Color of Grief

by Justin Hardiman September 22, 2023September 25, 2023

Having spent the first wave of COVID-19 in Rikers Island, David Campbell found the pandemic lockdowns he was met with after his release strangely familiar. The parallels of self-quarantine and incarceration can be tools for abolitionist solidarity.

What living through COVID in jail taught me about abolition

by David Campbell September 21, 2023September 21, 2023

The author, Mira Ugwuadu, posing for a portrait in the months after graduating from high school in Marietta, Georgia. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) Funding, education, and safety are at the top of the list of demands to dismantle the youth mental health stigma in Georgia schools.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

In Georgia, we need proactive—not reactive—mental health support in schools

by Mira Ugwuadu September 14, 2023November 13, 2023

Dakerri Rhone of the Human Rights Campaign speaks during a news conference held by the Human Rights Campaign to draw attention to anti-drag bills in the Tennessee legislature, on Tuesday, February 14, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee. (John Amis/AP Images for Human Rights Campaign) The mental health toll of anti-LGBTQ+ bills on Tennessee students. Tennessee has passed a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills attacking students' rights, mental health, and well-being.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

LGBTQ+ students in Tennessee have never been more terrified

by Lauren Barton September 14, 2023November 13, 2023

Young people gather during a rally held by Fairness Campaign to advance LGBTQ rights, Wednesday, February 19, 2020, in the Rotunda at the State Capitol, Frankfort, Kentucky. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston) Finding hope and solidarity for LGBTQ Kentucky youth. A trans student on how they and other LGBTQ Kentucky youth are dealing with the mental health fallout of Senate Bill 150 in schools.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

For LGBTQ+ young Kentuckians, community matters for mental health

by Ray Loux September 14, 2023November 13, 2023

Southern youth are speaking out on the mental health crisis, the challenges they face, and anxieties they hope to overcome.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Notes on 'In Their Own Words,' a series on the youth mental health crisis

by Rainesford Stauffer September 14, 2023November 13, 2023

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Young Southerners speak out: Reflections on the youth mental health crisis

by Scalawag Community September 14, 2023November 13, 2023

When Grief Speaks—Episode 1 of Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon, Season 1: Wailing Women. Grief is a woman with plenty to say. In the first episode of Great Grief, Nnenna Freelon asks us to consider what happens if we stop running from our grief, sit down, and listen to her for a change. Listen, subscribe, and read along with the podcast transcript.

When Grief Speaks

by Nnenna Freelon September 13, 2023September 29, 2023

Prison workers making uniforms at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard) Rehabilitation stops being a priority for officials when it conflicts with prison labor—abruptly shutting down programs, citing labor costs.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

The Profitable Prisoner

by Antoine Davis September 6, 2023September 5, 2023