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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 1d

Well hello from The Progressive South! 😀 Not partisan, but ideological — committed to news from, about and for progressives in the Southern U.S.

theprogressivesouth.org

The Progressive South – Raising Our Voices

theprogressivesouth.org

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 1d

sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-27...

Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South: Ep. 27: Looking for Progress in Texas

SYNOPSIS: What are the prospects for progress in Texas? Who better to ask than Progress Texas? This week Jesse talks to Chris Mosser, a veteran broadcaster who reports for the nonprofit media platform...

sites.libsyn.com

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 1d

What are the prospects for progress in Texas? Who better to talk to than @progresstexas.bsky.social? @chrismosser.bsky.social is the guest on this week's Headlights, talking Lone Star politics and media. Link below.

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 9d

On this week's HEADLIGHTS: Tennessee State Senator Heidi Campbell on the state's gun death statistics — and why they're among the worst in the country. Also, a remembrance of what the late great D'Angelo meant to his hometown of Richmond, Va. — and what it meant to him.

Ep. 26: Tennessee's Gun Deaths

Podcast Episode · Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South · 10/20/2025 · 38m

podcasts.apple.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 9d

The South's war on libraries continues: "In what intellectual freedom advocates have seen coming for months, a Texas school district has just shut down access to all secondary school libraries for students due to the regulations of the state’s Senate Bill 13."

A Texas District Has Just Banned Students from Secondary School Libraries

In order to ban books from its libraries, New Braunfels Independent School District has just closed its libraries to middle and high schoolers.

bookriot.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 15d

Florida's ongoing assault on free speech continues. Two grandparents who sent a signed postcard critical of the state's chief financial officer were visited at home by state law enforcement officers. These are police-state tactics aimed at people engaged in free expression.

Orlando Sentinel @orlandosentinel.com · 16d

Editorial: CFO Ingoglia says he hates waste – then sends gun-toting officers to ‘investigate’ a postcard trib.al/mGjUv5B

Editorial: CFO Ingoglia says he hates waste – then sends gun-toting officers to ‘investigate’ a postcard

When Floridians criticize their elected (or unelected) officials, they shouldn’t have to fear armed law enforcement showing up at their front doors. But that’s exactly what happened to a Largo coup…

trib.al

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 15d

R.I.P. D'Angelo, a native of Richmond, Va., whose music was soaked in Southern soul and funk. One of the greats.

variety.com/2025/music/n...

D’Angelo, Neo-Soul Pioneer and ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel)’ Singer, Dies at 51

Legendary R&B singer D'Angelo, who released three albums throughout his career, has died. He was 51.

variety.com

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 15d

This week: great conversation with Texas state Sen. @saraheckhardttx.bsky.social about Lone Star politics: the redistricting fight, the Texas non-voter problem, and where she sees opportunities. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 22d

This week: @corbintrent.bsky.social on "America's Undoing" and why Democrats are being too timid in pushing for a popular, populist progressive agenda. Also: How the right-wing media outrage machine works, and a memoriam for the late great Arkansas drag queen and club owner Norman Jones.

Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South: Ep. 24: 'America's Undoing' and the Right-Wing Message Machine

SYNOPSIS: In the South, the prospects for progressive causes and candidates can be daunting. But Corbin Trent thinks the answer is not to back down or dilute their messages — it’s to take strong, bold...

sites.libsyn.com

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Reposted by The Progressive South

Arkansas Times @arktimes.bsky.social · 28d

Arkansas native Norman Jones, a towering drag performer who won the first-ever Miss Gay America pageant and the driving force behind some of the state’s most beloved gay clubs, died Monday at the age of 79.

Norman Jones, drag legend and gay bar proprietor, has died - Arkansas Times

Arkansas native Norman Jones, a towering drag performer who won the first-ever Miss Gay America pageant and the driving force behind some of the state’s most beloved gay clubs, died Monday at the age ...

arktimes.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 27d

Good news from Georgia, although a referendum is still to come.

Southern Poverty Law Center @splcenter.org · 27d

Tuesday, Georgia’s highest court sided with Black landowners in a fight over zoning changes that weakened long-standing protections for one of the South’s last Gullah Geechee communities founded by emancipated Black people.

Read more: https://bit.ly/486yuuv

Georgia's highest court sides with slave descendants fighting to protect threatened island community

Georgia's highest court is siding with Black landowners in a zoning dispute affecting a historic Gullah-Geechee community.

apnews.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 29d

sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-23...

Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South: Ep. 23: Alexis Okeowo on Alabama

SYNOPSIS: Writer Alexis Okeowo grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, and then moved away from the state for college. She is a contributing writer for The New Yorker, and has reported from Africa and Mexico....

sites.libsyn.com

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · 29d

On this week's HEADLIGHTS: an interview with the reporter and author Alexis Okeowo, a contributing writer for The New Yorker who has a great new book out called BLESSINGS AND DISASTERS: A STORY OF ALABAMA. Part memoir, part history, part deeply reported consideration of her complex home state.

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 29

"Literacy is much more than the ability to read. Literacy is what results from repeatedly exercising that skill with a wide range of books. Learning. Empathy. A broader understanding of the world and the people in it.

The Alabama Public Library Service Board does not seem to like that."

Alabama's state library board seems hostile to literacy | Alabama Reflector

The Alabama Legislature is trying to raise reading scores as the Alabama Public Library Service is trying to limit what you can read.

alabamareflector.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 25

A Georgia journalist was detained while reporting on an anti-ICE protest, and DHS has reopened an old immigration case against him. He now faces deportation.

georgiarecorder.com/2025/09/23/i...

ICE officials, attorneys for Mario Guevara spar over the Georgia journalist’s immigration history • Georgia Recorder

Mario Guevara's lawyers asked a federal court on Monday for his release and to halt any potential deportation while in ICE's custody.

georgiarecorder.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 25

None of the reports from DHS so far have even mentioned the names of the actual people shot — one killed — at the Dallas ICE facility yesterday. This is because humanizing detainees in any way works against the desensitization and dehumanization necessary to sustain the mass deportation project.

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 22

Great conversation this week with Leah Song of Rising Appalachia — on music, activism, and bringing people together in tough times.

Also: What the National Guard deployment to Memphis signals for cities in Southern states.

youtu.be/4O4zUEgjT1g

Ep. 22: Rising Appalachia

YouTube video by The Progressive South

youtu.be

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 17

Thanks to contributor Glenn Daigon for this account of a successful union action by school bus drivers in Richmond, Va.

theprogressivesouth.org/learning-fro...

Learning From a Union Win in Richmond – The Progressive South

theprogressivesouth.org

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 16

This week: Guns and gun violence in the South, and why the right never wants to talk about it. Also: Great conversation w/Katie Blankenship of Sanctuary of the South, on providing legal help to immigrants in our chaotic moment.

sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-21...

Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South: Ep. 21: Guns and Sanctuary in the South

SYNOPSIS: In the wake of the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week, blame flew in multiple directions. As usual, nobody on the right wanted to talk about guns. But Kirk’s wasn’t even ...

sites.libsyn.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 9

Good news for Cop City protesters! The racketeering charges were a clear overreach that tried to frame political protests as an illegal conspiracy. But this is a mostly procedural ruling, and prosecutors will probably appeal.

Rough Draft @roughdraftatlanta.com · Sep 9

Judge will dismiss racketeering charges against ‘Cop City’ protesters

A Fulton County judge said Tuesday he will dismiss racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of trying to stop construction of Atlanta’s controversial public safety training center, commonly referred to by critics…

Judge will dismiss racketeering charges against ‘Cop City’ protesters

A Fulton County judge said Tuesday he will dismiss racketeering charges against all 61 defendants accused of trying to stop construction of Atlanta’s controversial public safety training center, commonly referred to by critics as “Cop City.” According to the Associated Press (via GPB News), Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer ruled that Republican Attorney General Chris Carr lacked the authority to bring the sweeping 2023 indictments under Georgia’s RICO law without authorization from Gov. Brian Kemp. The case was believed to be the largest racketeering prosecution ever brought against protesters in U.S.

roughdraftatlanta.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 9

New episode of Headlights: Steve Smith of @cleanenergy.org on solar and wind energy progress in the South, and how it's under threat from the Trump admin and massive new power-sucking data centers; and an update on Texas' ever-more-aggressive anti-abortion laws.

sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-20...

Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South: Ep. 20: Fossil Fuels and an AI Bubble

SYNOPSIS: Up until January of this year, several Southern states were among the leaders in clean energy production, with big investments in solar and wind power in Texas, Florida and elsewhere. Then c...

sites.libsyn.com

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 1

From slavery to convict leasing to Jim Crow to "right-to-work," the Southern economy has always depended on extracting labor as cheaply as possible. A Labor Day look at what @epi.org calls the "Southern Economic Development Model."

Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South: Ep. 19: Labor Day in the South

SYNOPSIS: It’s Labor Day, even in the South — the region of the country that has long been most hostile to workers’ rights. From slavery through Jim Crow, from “Right to Work” laws aimed at weakening ...

sites.libsyn.com

The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Sep 1

Holiday greeting from @rickbaldwin.bsky.social. #EditorialCartoons

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Aug 26

The latest from @rickbaldwin.bsky.social: School vouchers.

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The Progressive South @progsouth.bsky.social · Aug 25

Very happy this week to talk to writer, thinker, educator and Progressive South board member @sotoalfred.bsky.social about Florida politics — how they got so bad, how they can maybe get better.

sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-18...

Headlights: Voices from The Progressive South: Ep. 18: What happened to Florida?

SYNOPSIS: Florida was once the swing state that presidential elections hinged on. But over the last few decades, it has turned redder and redder. This week we’re joined by writer, educator and Progres...

sites.libsyn.com

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