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What Has Been Will Be Again

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Hellbender
Some Million Miles
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Where the Train Goes Slow
Where You Come From is Gone
Untitled (Friday May 3 - 1963...)
Everything Is Going To Be All Right
Shift//Tangent
Covid Drawings
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ABOUT

Jared Ragland is a fine art and documentary photographer and former White House photo editor. His collaborative, socially-conscious work critically confronts issues of identity, marginalization, and the history of place.
Read more + CV ︎︎

jared@jaredragland.com
+1 202 436 1082
Current location: Logan, Utah

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ASSIGNMENT + EDITORIAL WORK

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ALA. WORKERS TRYING TO UNIONIZE AMAZON FULFILLMENT CENTER: THE NEW YORKER

Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) Mid-South Council President Randy Hadley stands at the RWDSU rally point near the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Bessemer, Ala.

Darryl Richardson, Amazon employee who made first call to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) to organize a union of Amazon workers at the Bessemer, Alabama Amazon Fulfillment Center, photographed at the RWDSU building in Birmingham, Ala.

Michael "Big Mike" Foster, a poultry plant worker and Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) organizer, photographed at the RWDSU building in Birmingham, Ala.

Jennifer Bates, Amazon employee who supports unionization, photographed at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) building in Birmingham, Ala.

Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) building in Birmingham, Ala.

Amazon employee Catherine Highsmith stands outside her home in Birmingham before leaving for her night shift at the Bessemer, Ala. fulfillment center. Highsmith, who has joined union organizing efforts, wears an Amazon SRBRS vest, (pronounced “Cerberus”) which transmits a radio frequency that keeps robotic machinery from crashing into her.

Amazon Fulfillment Center, Bessemer Ala.

Pro-union signs placed outside the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Bessemer Ala. are regularly uprooted, discarded, or stolen by union busters.

Pro-union signs located near the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Bessemer Ala.

The City of Bessemer changed the duration of the stoplights located at several intersections along Powder Plant Road that lead to the Amazon Fulfillment Center. As a result, traffic would not be stopped as long in the intersections, giving union organizers less time to engage with Amazon employees.

Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) organizers Kim Hickson, left, and Carol McNair, right, at one of several intersections leading to the Amazon Fulfillment Center located along Powder Plant Road in Bessemer, Ala.

Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) Mid-South Council President Randy Hadley greets Amazon workers as they depart the Amazon Fulfillment Center located along Powder Plant Road in Bessemer, Ala.

Alabama workers try to unionize an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Ala. If the effort succeeds, it could galvanize similar campaigns at other Amazon facilities and radically alter labor rights and wages across the US. Story by Charles Bethea / Mai Schotz, photo editor.

Read the piece here.

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BREAKING THE RULE OF ONE: THE WASHINGTON POST

Virettia Whiteside, Fayette city councilwoman and manager of the Mayfair Manor and Valley Cove apartments in Fayette, Ala. Following a contested election in August 2020, Whiteside is the first Black woman elected to the city’s Ward 1 seat. Whiteside’s victory was largely due to her efforts in registering voters and encouraging absentee voting in the government subsidized apartments she manages.

The Valley Cove Apartments, managed by Fayette city council member Virettia Whiteside, the first Black woman elected to the city's Ward 1 seat.

The Valley Cove Apartments, managed by Fayette city council member Virettia Whiteside and occupied by fast-food workers, veterans, and elderly and disabled people, is located next to a cotton field in the city's Ward 1.

Downtown Fayette, Ala. Residents of Fayette regularly refer to the town as a kind of "Mayberry" where everyone knows everyone and gets along, but the city's 2020 municipal election revealed deep racial division and mistrust among Fayette's townspeople.

Confederate monument, downtown Fayette, Ala. When local Fayette ministers held a prayer vigil for racial justice during the height of nationwide protests in summer 2020, an organizer quietly asked people not to bring Black Lives Matter signs for fear of confirming locals' fears stoked by conspiracy theories and white supremacist rhetoric.

Floyd Rogers, Jr. stands outside his home in Fayette's Ward 2. Rogers is Whiteside's cousin and also ran for a city council seat in 2020. While Ward 2 is 70-80% white and Rogers is a convicted felon, he lost by just six votes. On the day this photograph was taken, Rogers was awaiting news of a potential pardon granted by outgoing President Donald J. Trump. Rogers did not receive the pardon.

Former council member Cedric Wilson served Fayette's historically Black Ward 4 for more than 20 years before stepping down in an unsuccessful bid for mayor. Early in the race Wilson ran uncontested, but after three other Black candidates began campaigns for city council seats – something that had never happened before in Fayette – whites across Fayette began to worry that “the Blacks were taking over.” Several white candidates then declared their intent to run for mayor and unfounded rumors began to spread about Wilson's intent to fire white city workers if he was elected. Wilson's early support eroded, and he was defeated in the August 25 municipal election. "It's not that I lost, but how I lost that hurt," Wilson said.

Aliska Hughes-Monroe, Virettia's best friend, was elected to represent the historically Black neighborhoods in Fayette's Ward 4. Their combined presence changed the longtime makeup of the council.

Zach, a resident of the Mayfair Manor Apartments, joined many other of his fellow residents in a multiracial coalition of fast-food workers, former addicts, veterans, the elderly and disabled to support apartment manager Virettia Whiteside’s election to the Fayette city council.

Residents from East Side organized alongside tenants at Mayfair Manor and Valley Cove to build a multiracial coalition of fast-food workers, former addicts, veterans, the elderly and disabled, and a few who kept declining to fill out voter registration forms until it became clear they could not read.

Residents sit outside Mayfair Manor. Following Whiteside's victory, investigators from the district attorney’s office visited Mayfair Manor three times asking tenants if their absentee ballots had been coerced.

A corkboard at Mayfair Manor displays a newspaper clipping about Whiteside's council election victory in August 2020.

Whiteside regularly works long hours, taking care of her tenants and helping residents with problems that could be as small as needing a ride to the grocery store and as large as not being able to afford medication.

Virettia Whiteside talks with a resident of the Mayfair Apartments.

The Fayette City Council — with members Tommy Williams and Virettia Whiteside — meets at City Hall in Fayette, Ala. Mayor Rod Northam is seen in the foreground.

Scottie Carl Porter, sits inside his antique store in downtown Fayette. Porter, an ardent Trump supporter and believer in unfounded racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, lost a lawsuit against Whiteside that disputed her eligibility to hold office in Ward 1 because she owns a home outside of it.

Haughton Acres, a predominantly white neighborhood in Fayette's Ward 1.

Christian bookstore, located in Ward 1 of Fayette, Ala.

After upending a racial norm in the rural South, a Black councilwoman contends with defiance from a community she wants to serve and is carried on a journey through wild conspiracies, investigations, and a failed lawsuit aimed at overturning her groundbreaking election. By Stephanie McCrummen / Bronwen Lattimer, photo editor.

Read here: Breaking the Rule of One

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CANARY: THE WASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATES

_{Carole Griffin at her home in Hoover, Ala., for The Washington Post's first long-form investigative podcast, Canary: The Washington Post Investigates.}
Hosted by reporter Amy Brittain, Canary: The Washington Post Investigates is a seven-part podcast that tells the intertwining stories of two women – Carole Griffin and Lauren Clark – separated by decades but united by a shared refusal to stay silent.

I am grateful to Carole for her bravery and vulnerability, to Photo Editor Nick Kirkpatrick for the assignment, and to Amy Brittain for thoughtful and sensitive storytelling – it's an honor to be a part of such important work.

Listen here: Canary: The Washington Post Investigates or read the investigative report from the Sun. Oct. 4 print edition.

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H2A VISA WORKERS FOR THE NC COOPERATIVE EXTENSION

_{H2A visa migrant workers topping tobacco in Wilson County, NC, for the NC Cooperative Extension.}
H2A is an agricultural program that brings in nonimmigrant foreign workers to the US for temporary, seasonal work. The program ensures employee rights by requiring employers to guarantee wages, housing, transportation, insurance, and other benefits. More than 165k H2A jobs were certified in 2016, a 160% increase since 2006, with more than half filled in Florida, Georgia, Washington, California and North Carolina.

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JARED RAGLAND