A Bust for Barbour’s Corporate Welfare
Chiquita, known as the United Fruit Company before that name became synonymous with political bullying and corruption in Latin America, announced recently that it was moving its operation at the Port of Gulfport to New Orleans.
When You’re Down and Out
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who rode into the Governor's Mansion decrying the evils of undocumented migrant workers, says he also doesn't want "unions involved in our businesses or our public sector."
The Police State That Was Mississippi
One out of every four adult Americans now has a police record. Louisiana and Mississippi lead the nation in putting people behind bars.
A Quantum Leap
Johnny McPhail and Lana Turner have something in common. The six-feet-four-inch, 215-pound, longhaired, mustachioed north Mississippi farm boy-turned-actor and the Hollywood sex siren of yesteryear both got discovered in a cafe.
Labor Rights, Civil Rights
A group of workers, preachers and activists traveled from Mississippi to Detroit recently to proclaim what should be a core issue of 2014. "Labor rights are civil rights," Open Door Mennonite Church pastor Horace McMillon of Jackson told folks at the North American International Auto Show.
Mandela and the South
When Nelson Mandela spoke to the U.S. Congress on June 26, 1990, the godfather of modern-day Republican obstructionism, the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, wasn't in the chamber.
The Immorality of Incarceration
Mariachi guitarist Johnny Mora's bout with drugs was years in his past, but the legacy of jail time it led to is as much a companion as his guitar when he travels to perform in clubs around Mississippi.
Southern Tradition and Hypocrisy
The ruling class in the South doesn’t tolerate challenges to its rule well.
Last of the Letter Writers
Sandy Margolis, the last of the letter writers, died at age 74 two years ago this September.
Nudging Nissan
Young people are a key reason things are happening on the UAW-Nissan front. The call from workers and community supporters for a fair union election in Canton is getting louder.
Free Market China
Chinese junks no longer dot Victoria Harbour. A foot-powered rickshaw is even harder to find. Skyscrapers now dwarf the stately colonial-era buildings at the heart of the old city.
Smiling in Heaven
My old friend Ray Smithhart would have loved the irony of union-fighting manufacturer Nissan making a gift of $100,000 to the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute.
By the Handful
Fannie Lou Hamer, a folk philosopher of the Civil Rights Movement, knew what she was up against in a state and region where an entrenched hard-right oligarchy ruled at the expense of the majority.
Organizing in the South
I'm a Catholic now, but I grew up in the Pentecostal Holiness Church. My grandfather was a Holiness preacher. I know about revivals. Preachers exhort, and people respond. They sing, they shout, they come to the altar and they pray.
City of the Dead
Memphis in 1878 became a city of the dead—people hiding behind shuttered windows and locked doors, the clickety-clack of wagons carrying the corpses to waiting gravediggers.
Attention Walmart Shoppers
Walmart's "chintzy" attitude toward the wages and benefits of its workers isn't news. What may be news to many, however, is just how bad it is for workers at Walmart suppliers around the world.
A Right to Choose at Nissan
A growing number of workers in recent months have called for an election to determine whether the United Auto Workers should represent them.
'Mississippi is Mine'
What Meredith did not only changed a university, but also a state and a nation.
The Dark Side
It was decades ago, but I'll never forget that night. I'm glad I wrote the details down in a journal.
Battle to Unionize Nissan
CANTON – Michael Carter hardly evokes the Hollywood image of a podium-pounding, fire-breathing labor agitator.
Danny Glover Stands with Workers
CANTON - Actor Danny Glover told a half-dozen Nissan workers at the United Auto Workers office here last Friday that he had a special, personal reason for meeting with them and encouraging them in their push for a union election.
Not So Young Guns
OLIVE BRANCH, Miss.—I'm staring into the face of Marshal Wyatt Earp. It's not exactly as I remember him back when I was a 10-year-old would-be cowboy and Wyatt was on television every Tuesday night. He's in a motorized wheelchair now, his once-jet black hair is gray, and he's sporting a beard.
[Atkins] Modern-Day Servitude
I was a lowly intern at a major newspaper up north, sitting at my desk in a corner plotting my day when a small, elderly, bespectacled man walked past me to a nearby telephone. Notebook in hand, he picked up the receiver and dialed.
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