Introduction

Dear Readers, We are delighted to introduce the latest issue of Southeastern Geographer, which also marks the beginning of our tenure as editors. This issue contains a very thoughtful special forum on the Charleston massacre of June 2015. Five short essays by seven geographers reflect on the implications of the murder of nine African Americans attending bible study in church by a self-proclaimed white supremacist. Different lenses on the tragedy dovetail in compelling ways. We hope that the forum encourages reflection and perhaps debate about how to understand and respond to ongoing racial violence. The special forum is followed by five articles showcasing the diverse nature of our discipline from human to physical geography. Tyner's article analyzes the speeches of Malcolm X to draw out new understandings of the Black freedom fighter's legacy. Specifically, Tyner urges readers to rethink Malcolm as at once "a critical theorist of geography and a radical political philosopher." He focuses on Malcolm's attention to geographies of the South in the latter's geopolitical philosophy. Malcolm's geographical critiques de-emphasized Southern exceptionalism, Tyner shows, and argued that "racial oppression and exploitation were constitutive of U.S. society as a whole." Markley and Sharma examine the politics surrounding a residential building demolition in suburban Roswell, Georgia as a case of revanchist (sub)urbanism in which working class, nonwhite residents are displaced in the name of revitalizing suburban space. This intriguing case study considers such changes in the suburban landscape in tension with ideas of (sub)urban entrepreneurialism and New Urbanism. Hardy, Hepinstall-Cymerman, and Fowler partnered with two local land trusts to develop a priority map for conservation easement recruitment in the Upper Oconee watershed in northeastern Georgia. In the U.S., more than half of threatened and endangered species and...