Southern Poverty Law Center

A community’s land is home to priceless, deep-rooted culture, treasured memories and beloved familial ties, qualities no real estate appraisal can portray. But what happens when outside forces try to push a community off that land? That’s been the plight of the Gullah-Geechee residents on Sapelo Island, Georgia, for the better part of the last century. Most recently, developmental pressures are threatening to displace the descendants of the formerly enslaved ancestors.

When the Southern Poverty Law Center invited a group of Black landowners to Atlanta to discuss the unique and often frustrating challenges they face, the No. 1 priority they described was also their greatest struggle: to preserve their land and culture for future generations. “Land is an asset in everyone’s hands in this country — except hands that look like mine,” said Beverly Steele, executive director of Young Performing Artists Inc. (YPAs).

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a settlement agreement filed Monday in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Cabrera v. Department of Labor, the Trump administration agreed to rescind its efforts to shutter 99 Job Corps centers nationwide. The settlement is a victory for the seven Job Corps students represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), as well as thousands of others across the country.

The steady buzz of clippers competes with the rhythmic beat of music, the playful debate over which team will win the next game, and the energetic dialogue about life, family, community and the right to vote in Rasheid Davis’ Head of the Class barbershop. Barbershops like the one Davis owns in Canton, Mississippi, are among the few places where some Black men feel comfortable in their own element, where they can be seen and heard.

The Intelligence Project Dispatch is a summary of notable trends and incidents of the hard-right, hate and antigovernment movements that occurred during the previous month. For a deeper dive into these movements and the harm they inflict on communities, visit Hatewatch, Ideology and Extremist Profiles, Hate and Flyering Maps and Responding to Hate & Preventing Harm Resources.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — At a press conference earlier today commemorating 61 years since the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) launched “We Decide: Alabama,” a civic engagement campaign aimed at registering and mobilizing voters in Alabama ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Frontline Policy Action (FPA), an organization with a history of working to advance anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion policies in Georgia, funneled more than $100,000 from a so-called “dark money” organization to a Georgia political action committee (PAC) to support the election of their preferred judge, a Hatewatch investigation has revealed.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida has ruled that the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) violated federal law when it seized a civil rights settlement from Jason Baez, an incarcerated man who lost an eye and was left nearly blind after a beating by FDC officers. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Florida Justice Institute (FJI) filed suit on Baez’s behalf challenging FDC’s seizure of his settlement funds.

Content warning: This story includes distressing accounts of suicide and self-harm. Reader discretion is advised. The night before he reportedly died by suicide in early May in an Alabama prison, Jeffery Floyd asked correctional officers for help. He received none. Floyd was housed in a structured living unit at Donaldson Correctional Facility. In this specialized unit, people who are incarcerated with serious mental health needs are expected to receive high levels of care.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Yesterday, a judge in the 9th Judicial Circuit Court denied the school board of Orange County, Florida’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on behalf of the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community Inc. (PEC) to protect the Robert Hungerford school property. The Hungerford property is a vacant parcel of approximately 100 acres of publicly owned land in the town of Eatonville, Florida.