© Bryan Chan for the Open Society Institute

Litigator and human-rights activist Kung Li traveled across the American South to record stories of resilience in communities of color that have persevered in the face of racism, anti-immigrant hysteria, police harassment, and government indifference.

In her travels from Cambridge, Maryland, and Cherokee, North Carolina, to Africatown, Alabama, and Newtown, Georgia, and beyond, Kung Li has been able to identify a set of common traits that distinguish resilient communities from those that have succumbed to hostile pressure. Among those traits are a strong sense of identity that shades into exceptionalism, economic practices that have turned deprivation into interdependence, a person (or persons) who exemplifies the community’s idea of courageous action, and a sharp sense of the enemy in their struggles for freedom and social justice.

Kung Li is the former executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and was named by American Lawyer as one of the nation’s Top 50 Litigators under 40 in 2007. Previously, she served as a staff attorney at the Law Center for the Homeless in Atlanta.