Meet Haylie McCleney, softball silver medalist Olympian from Alabama
In the first five games of Olympic play, Alabama-native Haylie McCleney scored four of Team USA's nine runs.
Kendra Gayle Lee, of Atlanta’s Bookish, wants you to diversify your bookshelf
Kendra Gayle Lee remembers the first time she read a book with an LGBTQ character who got to live “happily ever after.” “It was the first book that I read where the lesbian didn't have to die at the end,” Lee said, referring to Rita Mae Brown's 1970s lesbian coming-of-age [...]
Sha’Carri Richardson teaches us to love all Black women’s colored hair, long nails, lashes and tattoos
One of my favorite ways to wear my hair is in long red knotless braids. At one former workplace, the hairstyle drew offensive questions and statements from my employer. Are you in a gang? I don’t think that color is appropriate for our workplace. You normally look so professional. What [...]
‘What most kids need’: How one school community got SMART when its rural hospital closed
The only hospital in rural Pickens County, Ala., closed its doors for good just two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It was March 2020. The west Alabama county sits along the Mississippi state line, its landscape dotted with small towns. When the hospital closed in the county seat of Carrollton (pop. 1,000), Pickens County [...]
Need an abortion in Appalachia? ‘Holler’ at this West Va. group
Holler Health Justice launched in 2018 to fund abortions in West Virginia and Appalachia. Since, its mission has expanded to include providing free emergency contraception and harm reduction services. In 2020, the organization provided $111,415 in abortion funding and other support. The group dispersed more than 6,000 units of emergency [...]
How one survivor is standing up for sexual abuse victims in the Southern Baptist Convention
Hannah Kate Williams was raped by her father, a Baptist minister, then endured a forced abortion she says a deacon at her church helped perform. Now, she is asking the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Christian church denomination in the U.S., to hold sexual abusers like her father accountable. In [...]
Wanna be a drag queen? Alabama’s Champagne Munroe shares resources to get you started
When Champagne Munroe wanted to try drag back in July 2014, she turned up at B-Bob’s bar in downtown Mobile with a few old Halloween costumes, a little makeup, and a promise to herself to get on stage and have fun. “When I first started coming up, being gay and [...]
Why the $300 child tax credit could be a step toward universal basic income — and happier families
Next month, millions of American families will begin receiving monthly direct cash payments, and unprecedented foray into the idea of a universal basic income. A new expanded child tax credit, part of the American Rescue Plan that Congress passed in March, will give low- and middle-income families monthly payouts of $300 per child under age 6 [...]
On weathering seasons of change after the pandemic
Just over a year ago, I had just finished filling out my schedule for the month of April when all of my plans went astray. The pandemic hadn’t really affected my daily life up to that point. I continued to do my regular job in person since we did parts for the railroad and I worked in an office alone anyway.
Rachel Pearson of Engage: Reading, watching, listening on women’s economic security, policy
Rachel Pearson founded women’s economic policy organization Engage, www.engagewomen.org, after working for years in Washington, D.C., and growing frustrated at the lack of bipartisanship in Congress. “Women outlive, outnumber and out vote men,” Pearson said. “The political power should be ours, and we should have a much larger impact on [...]
