This week, we’re sharing stories from Lizzie Presser, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, S. Margot Finn, Darcy Frey, and Logan Hill.
Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.
* * *
1. Their Family Bought Land One Generation After Slavery. The Reels Brothers Spent Eight Years in Jail for Refusing to Leave It.
Lizzie Presser | ProPublica | July 15, 2019 | 30 minutes (7,602 words)
A deeply upsetting object lesson in how the arcane details of inheritance and property law are used to strip black Americans of their land.
2. An Epidemic of Disbelief
Barbara Bradley Hagerty | The Atlantic | July 15, 2019 | 31 minutes (7,862 words)
“This heffer is trippin… She was clean and smellin good, ain’t no way that shit happened like she said.” Defense witness trying to discredit a rape victim? No, a detective’s notes on a 14-year-old sexual assault victim.
3. Food Injustice
S. Margot Finn | The Breakthrough Institute | July 16, 2019 | 19 minutes (4,985 words)
Does helping poor urban families access fresh vegetables reduce health disparities? Probably not, but universal health care sure would.
4. Going Down the Pipes
Darcy Frey | Topic | July 15, 2019 | 36 minutes (9,120 words)
For the “Journeys” issue of Topic, Anna Holmes shares a reprint of a 1996 New York Times Magazine piece by Darcy Frey originally titled, “Something’s Got to Give.” The piece is a wild, frenetic look at the fragile fraternity of air traffic controllers minding the busiest airspace in the United States. “Every hour around here is 59 minutes of boredom and 1 of sheer terror.”
5. Is It Okay to Laugh at Florida Man?
Logan Hill | The Washington Post Magazine | July 15, 2019 | 25 minutes (6,268 words)
“What it’s like to go viral as one of the Internet’s biggest memes — and the moral complications of laughing along.”
Get the Longreads Weekly Email