As the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington approaches next week (August 28), Longreads has teamed up with Al Jazeera America’s “America Tonight”to collect the best civil rights stories.
We want your help: Share your favorite stories below in the comments, and we’ll spotlight some of your picks next week. They can be historical texts, stories from the archives, or newer reporting and essays.
Emily Perper is word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.
This week’s theme is sex work and sex workers. Such a complex subject is best explored through a variety of forms—essay, investigation, photo essay and interview.
The author chastises so-called feminists for embracing sex positivity while remaining complicit in whore-shaming, using Biblical characters as examples. She makes the important distinction between those engaging in sex work of their own free will and those forced into sex trafficking. Both groups deserve dignity and respect, she writes, and have the potential to be great allies to one another.
LinkedIn’s latest policy update forbids sex workers of any kind to create profiles, send messages, or network at all. This risks the safety, security, and financial well-being of sex workers, degrades their professions and furthers the stigmatic status quo against them. Dunn interviews sex workers, sex rights activists, and LinkedIn representatives.
Alicia Vera is a photojournalist. Eden, her friend, is a prostitute. With tenderness, Alicia documents a week in Eden’s life, as she goes to court, goes about her business, and talks to her mom about her job. (The link above is to NPR’s coverage; here is Alicia’s site, which has photos NPR could not publish. NSFW.)
Veronica Monet traded the corporate life for a job as an escort, then a courtesan, as well as a vocal sex rights activist, speaker, author, minister and more. She discusses what led her to sex work, the pros and cons of the profession, and whether she recommends sex work to others.
Win Bassett is a writer, lawyer, and seminarian at Yale.
My treasured longread of the week is Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s “The Poorest Rich Kids in the World” in Rolling Stone. I lived down the road from Duke University for ten years, but one doesn’t need any familiarity with the Blue Devils to become enthralled with the tale of a family haunted by real demons. Erdely writes near the beginning of her story, “When they turn 21, the family claims, the twins will inherit a trust fund worth $1 billion.” But by the end of the heroin-filled, heart-wrenching saga that involves blood, guns, torture, and even lions, one learns all the money in the world can’t save the heirs of the Duke family.
This week, we’re excited to share a Member Pick from Jeff Sharlet, a professor at Dartmouth and bestselling author of The Family, C Street, and Sweet Heaven When I Die. “Quebrado” is a chapter from Sweet Heaven, first published in Rolling Stone in 2008, about Brad Will, a young American journalist and activist.
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick:
Good reporting demands observation, but student journalists often struggle with the kind of focused hanging around you have to do with a subject to capture some accurate sense of them. How does the subject move? How do they interact with their environment, with other people? There’s so much information to gather before you ever ask a question, but the only way to get it is to shut up and watch. James Costanzo, who just completed a graduate journalism program at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, wrote about a parkour teacher in Manhattan earlier this summer for the tablet magazine Vertical Floor. It’s not only well reported but well written, because the writer took the time to observe.
In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Chuck and Josh discuss the history of hip-hop, from The Sugar Hill Gang to the present. They add their own personal history, which includes stories of attempted breakdancing and well-intentioned clothing choices.
Co-authors Jeff Weiss and Evan McGarvey speak with host Colin Marshall about their book 2pac vs. Biggie: An Illustrated History of Rap’s Greatest Battle. They talk about the artists’ rivalry, their beginnings, how their styles differed, and why you’re missing out if you only listen to one and not the other.
The drummer for The Roots talks about his influences growing up, how he listens to music, and his favorite part of Soul Train. (Bonus: Also check out Terry Gross’s classic 2010 interview with Jay-Z.)
Dan Charnas, a veteran hip-hop journalist and one of the first writers for The Source, talks with Jesse Thorn about the history of the hip-hop music business and how executives and entrepreneurs turned an underground scene into the world’s predominant pop culture.
Andrew Rice, contributing editor for New York magazine, spoke about his article on Jay-Z’s business acumen with James Braxton Peterson, director of Africana Studies, professor of English at Lehigh University, and founder of Hip Hop Scholars. Together they delve into the financial side of Jay-Z’s career.
If you were around in the ’90s, you might recognize Michael Rapaport from movies like Zebrahead, Poetic Justice, and Higher Learning. In 2011, he came out with a documentary on A Tribe Called Quest. He talks to The Treatment’s Elvis Mitchell about his love of hip-hop, his childhood in New York City, and his experience filming his favorite artists.
Got a favorite podcast episode on hip-hop? Share it in the comments.
Emily Perper is word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.
During rough weeks, I tend to refer back to a good #longread over and over. Here are four of the funniest around. Bookmark them, read them to your best friend on the phone, or save them for a particularly bad day. And when you read them, laugh.
“Why can’t you stand like that guy on stage? Look at his posture. Forget he’s black for a second, and just look at his body.” Eisenberg goes to the ballet with his mother so you don’t have to.
No one understands the intricacies of romantic comedy and genuinely loves the genre quite like Kaling does. Here, her descriptions of the supporting characters in rom-coms are spot-on.
Leigh Cowart is the Sex and Science Editor at NSFWCORP. She exists solely on rage and strange cheeses.
Telling you how good David Quammen’s “The Short Happy Life of a Serengeti Lion” is feels like a spoiler. No, I’d much rather slide my copy of National Geographic across the table and let you discover, for yourself, one lion’s brutal, ceaseless struggle for sovereignty. With prose visceral enough to implant memories, and devoid of any anthropomorphic dilution, Quammen has delivered a true feat of intimacy. Simply put, to read his words is to know lions.
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick:
Everett Cook, a rising senior at the University of Michigan, profiled former Wolverine and now NBA player Trey Burke last March. There are plenty of stories about athletic phenoms, but elite athletes are not the most innovative fodder. Cook used sophisticated storytelling techniques to reveal his subject. First, he told Burke’s story through his relationship with his father. And then he framed the profile around the father and his friends watching Trey play Penn State at a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. (The setting is conflict enough.) Such a sophisticated structure is a high-level writing skill.
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