Roger Reid, writer and producer of the popular Alabama Public Television series Discovering Alabama and author of the young adult novels Space and Longleaf, received a Southeast Regional EMMY Award for Outstanding Achievement for his work as writer of a Discovering Alabama episode titled “Alabama in Space” …
The passing this week of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia makes one miss the days when Southern politicians were complicated rather than merely crass. Yes, Byrd clung to office longer than he should have. Yes, he was a master of pork barrel spending. Yes, he lined up with the states’ rights and nullification Dixiecrats in the 1960s. But — like his fellow former Klansman Hugo Black of Alabama — he overcame his racist upbringing and became a supporter of civil rights, a defender of the promises of a living Constitution, and a champion of the poor and middle classes …
Southern Education Foundation vice president Steve Suitts (author of Hugo Black of Alabama) has followed up on the SEF’s recent report on expanding child poverty with an article on the Southern Spaces website. (Southern Spaces is “an interdisciplinary journal about the regions, places, and cultures of the American South.” Sort of like NewSouth Books.) Suitts writes: “The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation raises serious questions about the impact and validity of current educational policies and practices at every level on children in extreme poverty” …