Roots cling to boulders along Honey Creek Loop in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area in Oneida, Tenn. (Photo by Jesse Fox Mayshark)


Welcome to the Progressive South! We are a nonprofit media platform for progressive voices and values in the Southern U.S. We aim to provide news about goings-on in these states and amplify the important work of people and organizations across the region. You can find more information at the “About” tab, and check out our always-growing list of useful links at “Resources.” Our first project is our podcast:

A weekly program featuring a regional news roundup and interviews with people doing good work across the South. Plus, a little arts and culture. Available here as well as on Spotify, Apple and YouTube. Subscribe, like and share!


  • Headlights Ep. 46: The Air in Cancer Alley

    Headlights Ep. 46: The Air in Cancer Alley

    Everyone knows the air around Louisiana’s Cancer Alley is bad. But how bad? And what’s actually in it? That’s what two scientists at Johns Hopkins University set out to understand. Their work so far has shown the air in the communities around massive petrochemical plants has as much as 10 times higher levels of toxins…

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More From Headlights

  • Headlights Ep. 45: A Stand for Georgia Immigrants

    Headlights Ep. 45: A Stand for Georgia Immigrants

    As minority whip for the Georgia state Senate Democrats, Senator Kim Jackson helped lead the fight in this session for a package of bills aimed at reining in aggressive immigration enforcement in the state. Republicans have blocked them, but this week Jesse talks to Jackson about the proposals and the public outcry that led to…

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  • Headlights Ep. 44: Primaries and ICE Resistance

    Headlights Ep. 44: Primaries and ICE Resistance

    A raft of primaries and one special election in the South last week brought some fresh faces into the spotlight and offered tantalizing clues about this fall’s midterms. This week we take a look at the high-profile Democratic and Republican contests for U.S. Senate in Texas, as well as a slate of anti-establishment votes in…

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  • CoreCivic, Annotated

    The private prison company’s leaders are bullish on Trump and ICE. Here’s what they left out of their quarterly earnings call.

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  • Headlights Ep. 43: The ICE Prison Profiteers

    Headlights Ep. 43: The ICE Prison Profiteers

    This week, we take a look at CoreCivic, the Tennessee-based company that is one of the two largest operators of private prisons in the United States. We listen in on the company’s most recent quarterly earnings call, full of rising revenue numbers and rosy projections — and we annotate it with context and background that…

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  • Headlights Ep. 42: The ‘Ministry of Truth’ Brings Back Coal

    Headlights Ep. 42: The ‘Ministry of Truth’ Brings Back Coal

    When it comes to environmental protections, the Trump administration has been on a deregulatory spree. On the front lines of fights to protect air, water and ecosystems across the South is the Southern Environmental Law Center — a nonprofit with a team of more than 100 lawyers, who are keeping busy in courts and on…

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  • Headlights Ep. 41: Trump’s EPA in the South

    Headlights Ep. 41: Trump’s EPA in the South

    When it comes to environmental protections, the Trump administration has been on a deregulatory spree. On the front lines of fights to protect air, water and ecosystems across the South is the Southern Environmental Law Center — a nonprofit with a team of more than 100 lawyers, who are keeping busy in courts and on…

    Read more…