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Native Americans Build Strategies to Overcome Voter Suppression
Trump administration targets a voting bloc that could decide election results in multiple states
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Got Oxy? How Michigan’s Mike Rogers Helped Fuel the Opioid Crisis
The Republican Senate candidate spent 10 years in Congress as Pharma’s point man working to push prescription opioids
Alexander Zaitchik, Drop Site News
A New System of Labor Threatens Farmworker Power
Essay and photography by David Bacon
Harvesting machines and H-2A visas are concentrating power with growers and away from self-organized farmworker crews
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Essay
Wendell Berry Helped Me See Grief Can Be a Gift
A fallen tree, a front porch and a call to root and rise
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Will Rural Discontent Flip This Border Tossup District?
Health care and the economy drive voter frustration
September 5, 2026
MAHA and the Politics of Cancer
Corn Belt candidates buck party lines to win votes
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September 2, 2026
Rural Organizations Step Up to Protect the Ballot Box
Trump’s attempt to federalize elections targets rural voters
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Politics & Policy
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For These Rural Teens, Organizing Is Their Extracurricular
A high schooler confronts isolation and disconnection in rural Maine
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Young Candidates and Organizers Pave the Way for Rural Civic Engagement
These Oklahomans are under 35 and ready to lead
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A Coming Revolution in American Democracy
These three reforms could make elections fairer
Food & Agriculture
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Do Rural Residents Have the Power to Say No?
From CAFOs to data centers, corporate America dodges local control
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Deere Settlement Is a Win for the Right to Repair. But Advocates Say There’s a Catch
FTC settlement has raised questions about why the Trump administration chose not to pursue a trial
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The Save Our Bacon Act Won’t Save American Farms
The bill supports multinational corporations and not independent farmers like me
Special Reports
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New
Rethinking Immigration and Health in Rural America
How rural immigrants sustain networks of care and resistance in Maryland
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Protecting Rural Public Schools
The Movement to Defund Rural Public Schools
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The Fight to Prevent PFAS Pollution
Why PFAS—forever chemicals—contaminate wells in many rural areas
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Reimagining Rural Cartographies
Written and photo essays that examine nontraditional maps of the Midwest
More →Native Life
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Native Americans Resist SCOTUS Voting Rights Decision
Callais ruling has ramped up gerrymandering—and could choke off Native access to the polls
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Georgia Garden Connects Cherokee Nation to Its Roots
Tribal elder helps safeguard Cherokee culture with more than 400 traditional plants
Science & Environment
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The Movement to Ban Glyphosate Grows
Some environmental groups and Democratic leaders miss the boat
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‘Laboratories for Profound Biological Change’
If we paid attention to industrial agriculture, it could cause discomfort whenever we sit down to eat
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Is Sludge Poisoning Your Well?
PFAS wreak havoc on rural Wisconsin drinking water. Rural wells nationwide could face similar issues.
Religion
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This Reconstruction-Era Church Is a Place of Sanctuary, Liberation and Reunion
With many rural churches closing their doors, Riverhill has found a way to thrive for over 150 years
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Defusing the Christian Right Requires Understanding It and Offering Something Better
Respectful dialogue begins by listening to people’s beliefs and values
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County Before Country
How a Wisconsin pastor is leading the far-right crusade to criminalize LGBTQ people and destroy Western Christianity
History
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How Dissent Shaped America
From 17th century religious dissenters to Occupy Wall Street, dissent has been an integral part of our history
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Texas’ Radical Past Points to a Possible New Future
The People’s Party history shows how to build a working-class movement
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Barn Raisers
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Common Ground is Found at a Montana Barn Raising
The former speaker of the Montana House and Missoula mayor reflects on working together across differences
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Barn Raiser’s 2025 Year in Review
In a year of sweeping federal policy change and visionary rural organizing, Barn Raiser covered rural America from coast to coast
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Wendell Berry: What New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman Gets Wrong About Rural America
‘Those of us who speak for the country (“rural America”) must never give up’
Letters to the editor
Readers Respond to the DCCC
Read →Arts & Culture
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Wendell Berry, Kentucky Writer, Farmer and Advocate, Dies at 92
When Berry left New York City and returned home to Kentucky in the 1960s, he did so with “some fear and trembling, but also a sense of doing the right thing”
Sarah Ladd, Kentucky Lantern
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The Music of Progressive Patriotism
When social movements need to march in beat, Dick Flacks gives them a song
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A Farmer Reflects on Juneteenth
Liberation and the healing power of breaking free