The Rural Blog

A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism, based at the University of Kentucky. Links may expire, require subscription or go behind pay walls. Please send news and knowledge you think would be useful to benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Rural Blog

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Opinion: Now that it's a national holiday, Juneteenth needs to retain the historic textures of long-held local observances

Singer Tina Turner, native of tiny Nutbush, Tenn., dies at 83

Quick hits: Every crisis needs a bird; Black gospel pioneer honored; 'How to thrive when everything feels terrible' . . .

How a rural paper hits a target reader — over 60, Black, parent — when its staff has none of those characteristics

Six Central Arkansas communities share their African American history in an effort to help recover and preserve it

Friday's quick hits: All's quiet with rural reticence; celebrating Nina Simone; want your own Tiny Desk concert?

Federal and state officials erased a Black cemetery; their only public notice was a legal ad too many people missed

It's Black History Month: Educator talks about teaching America's history, all 'the good, the bad, and the ugly'

Opinion: Rural America is listening for leadership to support its economic and social renewal, but hears mostly silence

'Adam is with us.' A genealogist finds DNA from first man

USDA funds 71 climate-related projects at less than $5 million, many of them to 'figure out what works,' Vilsack says

As Democrats turn away from Iowa, some in party see ways to get more rural votes: show up, be humble, value work

Stories from three states show higher risk of pregnancy and childbirth in rural areas, as abortion laws pose complications

Quick hits: Gardening through a drought; Delta farmworkers claim discrimination; just how rural is your place?

Rural residents, especially in South, likelier to have medical debt; most Americans have had some in the last five years

Quick hits: USFS needs firefighters; 'forever chemicals' may damage your liver; podcast talks rural Black health

Quick hits: Sterile super-Romeo trout may help curb invasive species; tools for rural electric co-ops transitioning to renewable energy; federal aid fuels pickleball boom

Quick hits: Texas town split by murder charges in alleged abortion; why food prices are up and farmer profits aren't

Ex-census overseer: Skewed 2020 census meant 6 states wrongly lost a House seat, 6 more rural states gained one