Nona Willis Aronowitz

If We're So Strapped, Why Don't We Move Abroad?

Nona Willis Aronowitz on February 12, 2013 - 12:29 PM ET

Job seekers wait in line at a construction job fair in New York, August 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

“I hate to say this, ‘cause it sounds so cynical,” says 24-year-old Alyssa Dinberg, as she swats her cat away from the couch we’re sitting on. “But it almost feels like America is on the verge of crumbling…and I don’t really want to be here when it crumbles.”

Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and the Power of Being an Ally

Nona Willis Aronowitz on February 7, 2013 - 1:02 PM ET

Mt. Zion United Methodist Church. (Aaron Cassara)

I’ve known the story since I was a kid. At my summer camp, which has an infamous socialist history, one of the bunks is named after “Goodman Schwerner and Chaney,” and Goodman’s mom, Carolyn, had come to my camp to talk about what had happened to her son and his two friends. So last week on our way back to Birmingham, my husband and I stopped at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, tucked away on a rural road off Route 16 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. It’s the church where Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner spoke to the congregation about setting up a Freedom School; they later returned to investigate a fire there. It was a few miles from where those same men had been murdered in late June of 1964, then buried in an earthen dam off Route 21 next to the water tower.

Living Next Door to Mississippi's Last Abortion Clinic

Nona Willis Aronowitz on February 5, 2013 - 7:05 PM ET

The Jackson Women’s Health Organization was just painted bright pink. (Aaron Cassara)

The Fondren neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi, is one of those attractive, deliberately indie enclaves with coordinated pastel storefronts and cheekily named cafes—the type of place populated by artists, professionals and young families all living in harmony. Right in the middle of the main drag there’s a freshly painted pink building that blends in nicely with the teal and Easter egg-yellow facades surrounding it. Once inside, you’re hit with splashes of salmon and peach and purple. The furniture is red leather, and colorful art hangs on the wall.

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In Whiter New Orleans, There's a Gray Area

Nona Willis Aronowitz on February 4, 2013 - 6:57 PM ET

New Orleans' Marigny neighborhood, which has been gentrified in the past decade (Flickr)

“The post-Katrina influx just made it harder for people who are from here and are not the right color,” says Tracey Brown, a 24-year-old black New Orleans native who has watched her city get whiter over the past decade. “I have to ask those transplants: ‘Are you working a job where everybody at your job is not only not from here, but also white? Why do you not question that?’”

Could New Orleans Be the Labor Movement’s Next Frontier?

Nona Willis Aronowitz on January 31, 2013 - 6:57 PM ET

For New Orleans bartenders, business is booming. (Doug Waldron/Flickr)

Right now in New Orleans, you can hear the whir of helicopters up above and the groan of trucks heading toward the French Quarter, preparing for the thousands of tourists about to descend on the city. New Orleans is expecting 150,000 visitors for the Superbowl this Sunday, and a million more to binge-drink during Mardi Gras a few days later. And behind every bar and restaurant counter, workers are signing up for extra shifts in hopes that they can make a little commission off the influx.

How to Raise a Progressive Kid in Alabama

Nona Willis Aronowitz on January 30, 2013 - 11:39 AM ET

A Tuscaloosa BBQ joint. (Aaron Cassara)

Editor’s Note: For the next two weeks, Nation contributor Nona Willis Aronowitz will be guest-blogging while she’s on a reporting road trip to Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Jackson and New Orleans. Look for her dispatches at TheNation.com!