Wright Thompson’s Mississippi: Unearthing Truth in The Barn
In his new book, Wright Thompson explores the murder of Emmett Till and its lasting impact. John T. Edge interviews Thompson about confronting Mississippi’s past.
Reconciliation
All of These People Are Cousins
Almost a decade ago, Betsy Haywood began searching for the roots of her Raleigh family. She discovered her tribe was far broader than she ever expected.
By Joshua Steadman /
A “Completely White World”
When integration came, her parents sent her to a whites-only private school. For four years, she’s collected the stories of students from that era. This is what she’s learned.
By Ellen Ann Fentress /
The Ever-Changing Colors of the South
Young Ellen Corry moves to Manhattan and discovers the South will not leave her.
By Ellen Corry /
American Hope & Prayer
He was singing a song lamenting the murder of George Floyd when a woman who had stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, said she didn’t agree. Not at all.
By Adam Klein /
To Reckon With Robert E. Lee
As he drove back home, the Confederate monument on Stone Mountain loomed above him and forced him to reckon anew with the myths surrounding the Confederate general.
By Doug Cumming /
No Rest for the Lion
After the Civil War, the Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association erected a monument to the Confederate dead in the city’s historic Oakland Cemetery. In 2021, it was removed. Writer Mark Beaver ponders what the evolution of that cemetery tells Southerners about themselves.
By Mark Beaver /
Segregation in the ’70s South
After living in Japan, a young George Lancaster returned to these shores for seventh grade in a Georgia middle school — and found segregation still lingering. These are his memories.
By George Lancaster /
Ghost Stories, Master Race
A night spent searching the web for ghost stories from his home state of Virginia led Scott Hurd into the state’s dark history of sterilization and breeding to create a white master race.
By Scott Hurd /
The People of Africatown
The Clotilda was the last slave ship to sail from western Africa to the American South. When slavery ended, the boat’s captives built Africatown, their own self-sustaining community on Mobile Bay. With this week’s release of a new Netflix documentary, their story is about to reach the entire world.
By Cynthia Tucker and Frye Gaillard /
A Stolen Poem
North Carolina writer Kathleen Purvis remembers the time another girl in her class stole her writing and passed it off as her own. The incident hurt her — but it also taught her lessons that shaped the rest of her life.
By Kathleen Purvis with an illustration by Stacy Reece /
The Division of History
Two hundred years ago, a freed Charleston slave named Denmark Vesey attempted to lead a rebellion. To many Black people, he is a hero, but his name is still anathema to many whites.