Over a quarter of Americans work in retail-- why do we overlook them? For Black Friday, I've got some good old retail horror stories plus some blessings for all y'all. workingclassstories.substack.com/cp/180177466

Page One in Cincinnati: “.. I need to be able to look my grandkids in the eye and say I did not remain silent.” #ICE

North Carolina, how you impress me. My latest for Courier News, published here in Cardinal & Pine, about DHS and the overwhelming community response against border patrol last week. cardinalpine.com/2025/11/24/a...

After the third day of CBP and ICE chasing people across Charlotte, hundreds of community members are filing into Dilworth United Methodist to find out how they can protect and defend their communities. @siembranc.bsky.social

Today was Day Two of Customs and Border Patrol’s Charlotte Operation. Members of our Safe to Work community patrols hit the streets early this morning and observed federal agents preparing to spend their day questioning grocery shoppers.

So let me get this straight: The President’s plan to lower prices is to roll back some of his own tariffs?

I ran into card dealers striking for union recognition out in rural Indiana. Working folks are resisting everywhere. In my latest on Working Class Storytelling, what we all can learn from unions: open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

What would it look like if you and all your friends fashioned yourself into a powerful voting bloc? That's what the UFO Skate Collective is doing in their hometown. open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

Have you ever felt frustrated about what's happening around you, but felt like you were just one person? This is a story about how a small group of strangers transformed into hundreds of people taking action in their hometown over just one summer: workingclassstories.substack.com/p/this-will-...

There's a lot of confusion about who receives SNAP assistance. This past spring, I met Jocelyn, a single mom who works at a local radio station and who prepares and serves a meal twice a week in her hometown of Roswell, NM. She also receives SNAP in order to make ends meet.

For folks asking if they've made it *inside* a Home Depot yet as the business has clearly just continued letting agents do whatever they want in their lots, the answer is yes. This is from yesterday in Evanston.

"The fact that the nomination got this far illustrates how much antisemitic and hateful rhetoric has been normalized, explained away or rewarded by Republicans in power," @katierogersnyt.bsky.social writes of the Ingrassia case. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...

Hey friends. I'm working on one of my monthly columns. If your town has municipal elections coming up what is the ONE local issue you are thinking about most when you cast your vote?

I live in a "dangerous" neighborhood: I heard a commotion out front and saw two young men arguing. I recognized both; one walks back and forth in front of my house half a dozen times a day and is usually strapped. I don't know if the other one carries. 🧵1/3

“The last few months have been a lesson in power: who has it, who is trying to hoard it, and how regular people—teachers like Morgan, her students’ families, the working folks of this town—go about getting it.” @gwenfulton.bsky.social workingclassstories.substack.com/p/lessons-in...

I’ve received multiple death threats + doxing (including my home address) directly following harassment from Turning Point USA, Jack Posobiec, Andy NGO, + Fox News which called me an antifa ‘financier.’ I have been forced to move my classes online. If journalists want to talk, DM me or reply here.

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second. We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

Professor Dwayne Dixon has been reinstated by UNC CH -- turns out it's a BAD IDEA to try to terminate professors based off loose allegations of being "antifa" made by far-right Brietbart/Fox News journalists supported by VDARE and Groypers. Who would have thought?

How do you hold a millionaire developer accountable to the working class in your town? Morgan, a Colorado teacher, is trying to figure out just that. Latest on Working Class Storytelling.

Professor Dixon is a friend to many folks across NC and a beloved teacher at Carolina. Yesterday, he was put on leave for being "antifascist." No other allegations or complaints against him. He's now barred from the campus where on Friday he worked. www.change.org/p/reinstate-...

We can't let them pick people off. Ain't a soul @uncchapelhill.bsky.social who feels unsafe with this prof there; ain't a student who can't form their own beliefs. Don't let them label any of us as extremists when we are anti-fascist or anti-racist. www.dailytarheel.com/article/2025...

“You don’t necessarily need people doing things that are high-risk. You just need large numbers of people doing them,” says Hardy Merriman in an episode of @newyorker.com’s ‘The Political Scene’ discussing strategies of resistance in a backsliding democracy. Tune in now!

Gamers get stereotyped as weird recluses, but what if I told you there is a whole movement of gamers who use their platforms for connection, support, and community building? open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

Libs of TikTok and the Cape Fear Proud Boys have spent the entire week trying to get things to pop off at #UNCW. This is where our kids go to learn, to become adults. Adults stoking fire at a campus is not just childish, but cruel. Tonight the kids are sheltering in place. It shouldn't be like this.

My treatise on how outrage on the internet might not be outrage at all. open.substack.com/pub/beaconme...

Because I love my craft, I ate two plates of hash browns. For research. My treatise on how "internet outrage" often just isn't outrage at all. open.substack.com/pub/beaconme...

Organizing to watch: Residents in a small desert city have figured out a way to protect affordable housing after disasters and keep out-of-town investors from swooping in to flip them. open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

Judge Farmer: At this time I do not find the Attorney General had the authority to bring this RICO case

People doing community organizing in some fashion or another: Tell me about a time when things got MESSY! Like the fight got hot and you considered quitting or you got pretty freaked out. When the people in power flexed that power and the road ahead seemed harder than you thought. What you got?

For my latest, I talked with counter-recruiter Rory Fanning about how we should communicate with National Guard troops deployed in US cities, and how we might counter ICE's current recruiting blitz.

“The stories I’ve been finding in small, working-class towns across the country are action-oriented. Instead of making requests of those in power, these projects & people are USING power.” @gwenfulton.bsky.social‬ workingclassstories.substack.com/p/stick-with...

I headed to Knoxville TN to meet the moms behind Tennessee MomTok. I asked them: Is what you are doing political? Their answer surprised me. open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

I used to think that only rich people, the good ol' boys, could be in government. But now I know that people like Preston cannot only run, but win. Preston is Fletcher NC's first Black mayor and he's a janitor by day. Latest on Working Class Storytelling: open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

The same week that Mandy Hodge was evicted from a national forest and into town, that town's housing prices hit a record high. When we sweep homeless camps, where are people supposed to go? My latest on Working Class Storytelling: open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

What the hell do I know about international law, but I'm pretty f-ing sure you can't just blow up boats of civilians in international waters even if they have drugs on board.

This Labor Day, love and admiration to all workers, from the mines to the carwashes, the kitchen to the classroom. open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

Kudzu, mountains, sky. North Carolina.

“Democracy is messy…It moves fast and requires constant recalibration by all of us—citizens & our elected representatives. From my view, there’s no better place than local government to muck through and figure it out.” @gwenfulton.bsky.social‬ workingclassstories.substack.com/p/mucking-th...

My kids enthusiastic updates from his college cafeteria feel like a real referendum on my cooking.

“It is unlikely that…the Democratic Party, can now outcompete the GOP in rage, or even should do so, but they can outcompete the GOP if they can show working-class people that they have rational-actor goals in their behalf to pursue.” @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Somewhere in last 15 years or so the belief that longform journalism usually works best as narrative, & that narrative usually works best with fully-drawn characters—vs talking head experts—became an exotic notion, replaced by virtuoso marshaling of damning facts too dully arranged to digest.

Everyday people are finding that showing up at public meetings can bring about big, impactful change. Don't sleep on local gov, it's where we can flex the most power. Latest on Working Class Storytelling: open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

“Public goods—from public land to the weather service—are being sold for parts to private for-profit entities based on the assumption that millionaires know more than park rangers, scientists, or a town’s people.” @gwenfulton.bsky.social‬ workingclassstories.substack.com/p/public-mon...

Less food on the table, more medical debt, bigger billionaire tax breaks– this is what the Broken Budget delivers. Join us in Greensboro as we demand better for families, children, and hard-working North Carolinians: www.mobilize.us/megaphonenc/...

Local politics is where it's at. In towns across the country, local residents want to be involved and local representatives want them to be too- where is the gap? My latest column in Courier News: cardinalpine.com/2025/08/07/i...

I love the borderlands.

Update on this story out of Colorado: The petition drive re:using local tax dollars to fund Martin Linds stadium was successful! They got enough signatures to get this issue into the Nov ballot, meaning the residents of Greeley will have a say! Organizing works! open.substack.com/pub/workingc...

My Uber driver in New Orleans has a wife and two toddlers; his two year old has Downs. They are being evicted Friday. "I don't know what to do," he said. "I work every minute, all the time."

Washington Post: “Is fascism bad? The answer may surprise you” Teen Vogue: “Here are three fun tips you can use this summer to disable an armored personnel carrier”