Joe Killian

2 weeks ago | theassemblync.com | Sayaka Matsuoka |Joe Killian

For the last two years, Angela Baldwin has been one of many in Greensboro who depend on a local food pantry to make ends meet. In her tight-knit Glenwood neighborhood, the pantry is run out of the carport of the old United Methodist Church on Glenwood Avenue. The city purchased the property back in 2023 and has worked with the neighborhood association and the grassroots group Food Not Bombs to provide food. “I relied on it daily,” said Baldwin, who spoke to The Thread from her front porch.

1 month ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

The N.C. Folk Festival will return to downtown Greensboro September 12-14 with an eclectic roster of Grammy award-winning headliners, up-and-coming stars, home-grown talents, and world music legends. This year’s theme: “Find Common Sound.”Jodee Ruppel is the festival’s executive director and ethnomusicologist Savannah Thorne its programming chair. We caught up with them to talk about what that means and how the festival, held in Greensboro since 2015, continues to evolve.

1 month ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

Three months into President Donald Trump’s second administration, Americans across the political spectrum say they’re concerned about a constitutional crisis, according to the latest Elon University Poll. The poll, released last week, showed two-thirds of respondents (67 percent) are very or somewhat concerned that the executive and judicial branches may reach a point where neither side will back down, creating a crisis over who has the final say on an issue.

2 months ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

When UNC Greensboro and Elon University’s School of Law held a joint symposium on the rule of law Monday, it shouldn’t have been remarkable. But David Levine, associate dean and professor of law at Elon, felt compelled to point out it was. “[Legal scholar] Mark Lemley at Stanford [University] has been a mentor and colleague,” Levine said. “And he said, ‘Institutions need to stand for truth now more than ever’—and that’s what this has been about.”“Everyone has opinions,” Levine said.

2 months ago | theassemblync.com | Joe Killian

When journalist Brian Goldstone set out to write a book about homelessness in Atlanta, he thought he knew some things. He’d lived in Atlanta for years, and been a reporter writing about poverty and inequality for publications like Harper’s and The New York Times. In reality, he told a crowd at an event at First Lutheran Church last week, he found himself confronting even his own misguided assumptions about who becomes homeless, how, and why.