“If those who came before us could inhabit uninhabitable territory, making homes in a no man’s land, then we, by way and by will, can survive anything.”
American South
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hellhounds on His Trail: Mack McCormick’s Long, Tortured Quest to Find the Real Robert Johnson
“For decades, the Houston folklorist labored over his biography of the legendary bluesman. Seven years after McCormick’s death, the book is finally out—and so are the secrets long kept by its troubled author.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
In 1848, An Enslaved Couple Fled to Boston in One of History’s Most Daring Escapes
“Risking their lives for liberty and for love, Ellen and William Craft devised a bold plan: They’d don disguises — she as a white man — and embark on the perilous journey north.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Why Did Walter Springs Die?
“In time, it was almost as if he had never existed at all.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Controversial Plan to Unleash the Mississippi
Past attempts to control the great Mississippi River through levees have led to significant land loss along the delta. Boyce Upholt asks: What more can be done — and at what cost? One morning last summer, as we weave in his skiff through the parish’s marshland, Richie Blink tells me that the federal government has […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Acid Church
An essay by Courtney Desiree Morris on Louisiana, her grandmother, drugs, feeling alive, and finding one’s queer tribe. I roll my hips like the Mississippi, joints loose and easy, feeling light and free. I cannot remember the last time I felt this way. That makes me sad. I accept this insight and let it go […]
Posted inReading List
‘We Are Everywhere’: A Reading List for the Queer South
It is time now to listen. We are not going anywhere.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Red America’s Compassion Fatigue: A Report From Mobile, Alabama
“But what, I wondered, about people living in red America who have embraced immunity? In the national battle over vaccination, their voices have largely been drowned out.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Dolly Moment
“Only a society that willfully believes itself ‘post-racist’ could produce such a queen.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Almost Home
Pete Candler reflects on growing up in the South, legacy, and a place rooted in white supremacy.