Institute for Southern Studies, Inc.

Mission

"[A]wonderful, wonderful resource for people - from the merely curious, to people who want to know how they can get involved and create change."- Julian Bond, Chairman, National NAACP

Since our founding in 1970 by veterans of the civil rights movement, the Institute for Southern Studies and our nationally-acclaimed publications Facing South and Southern Exposure have established a national reputation as an essential resource for grassroots activists, community leaders, scholars, policy makers and all individuals and organizations working to bring lasting social and economic change to the region.

From the very beginning, the Institute has carved out a unique role as the only region-wide organization combining the in-depth investigations essential to understanding the South with the grassroots organizing needed to change it. The Institute draws attention to the national importance of the South and offers an exciting vision of the region--a place brimming with cultural and racial diversity and a capacity for progressive change that challenges its reputation as a monolithic, conservative stronghold.

Throughout our history, the Institute has maintained a strong commitment to developing research and publication projects that directly support grassroots organizing. This strategy has helped initiate regional and national battles over utility rates and in issues arising from privatization. It has also lead the Institute to be involved in the launching of such organizations as the Brown Lung Association, Southerners for Economic justice, the Georgia Power Project, and the Gulf Tenants Leadership Development Project. The Institute has also examined the Southern contribution to culture and social change, from gospel music and the blues to the civil rights movement and community organizing.

Since 1973, the Institute's journal, Southern Exposure, has earned a national reputation for thorough investigations, sensitivity to indigenous cultures and social movements, and creation of educational handbooks. From our first issue on the military in the South through our special book-length issue on the Klan, economic development, the nuclear industry, and regional theater, the magazine has remained in high demand among organizers and trainers. Many back issues are now considered standard resource for classrooms and workshops, and issues on the civil rights movement, Native Americans, prisons, folk life, schools, and the poultry industry are out of print.

In 2005, the Institute launched Facing South, a web-based publication that has become the largest online Southern magazine in the country. Facing South provides daily investigative reporting, news analysis and other coverage about key issues and trends. Facing South's reporting has been featured by ABC News, CNN, National Public Radio, USA Today, The Washington Post and dozens of other major media outlets.

Over 35 years later, the Institute remains committed to providing a new voice for a changing South.