Nearly 5000 protesters assembled in Montgomery, Ala., on Saturday, May 16, as part of the emergency mobilization dubbed All Roads Lead to the South. The Montgomery rally followed the recreation of a segment of the first Selma to Montgomery march of 1965, when 600 protesters were attacked by state troopers on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, an event that has come to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” Faith leaders, politicians, and activists joined figures like the “oldest living foot soldier” from that original crossing, 84-year-old Annie Mae Avery, and Sheyann Webb-Christburg, who was an eight-year-old participant and victim of the police assault. These mobilizations were a response to the Supreme Court’s April 29 ruling on the case of Louisiana v. Callais , which granted Louisiana the right to gerrymander voting districts to make Black representation to Congress nearly impossible. Within days of the verdict, other white Southern state governors and legislators rushed to u...
A ProPublica investigation revealed a new change proposed by the Trump administration that would cut Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for up to 400,000 Americans with disabilities. The SSI system provides a very modest basic income to adults who are unable to work due to severe disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism, or blindness. The maximum monthly benefit in 2026 is $994 per person, far below the federal poverty line . Because current SSI benefits are not enough to live independently, many SSI recipients live with their families into adulthood, in order to avoid the alternatives of institutional living or homelessness. People with disabilities benefit from the social, cultural, and structural support of living in a multi-generational home. Family caregivers develop routines that integrate their loved ones, providing individualized support that is hard to replicate in an institutional setting. Families often invest substantially in building acco...