The Day the Great Plains Burned

Ian Frazier, author of the classic book The Great Plains, takes a close look at the catastrophic fires that devastated huge swathes of Kansas and Oklahoma due, in part, to climate change.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Nov 5, 2018
Length: 27 minutes (6,922 words)

Deep River

Before anyone could write a comprehensive discography of golden age gospel recordings, upwards of 75 percent of this uniquely American music got destroyed or lost. Music historian Robert Darden runs the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project to protect and share what’s left.

Source: Oxford American
Published: Sep 4, 2018
Length: 13 minutes (3,436 words)

Paks 1918: A Pogrom and a Prelude

Howard Lovy retells his grandfather’s childhood accounts of anti-Jewish violence and blood libel in pre-Holocaust Hungary.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 8, 2018
Length: 16 minutes (4,186 words)

My Life Cleanse: One Month Inside L.A.’s Cult of Betterness

For one month, one man embraced a number of so-called woo-woo self-improvement practices in his adopted Los Angeles, from crystal healing to “prayer power batteries.” His journey led him to a controversial program called Mastery in Transformational Training, or M.I.T.T.

Source: GQ
Published: Nov 1, 2018
Length: 34 minutes (8,564 words)

‘It’s Not Rair, Not Right’: How America Treats Its Black Farmers

Sugarcane is Louisiana’s most lucrative, stable crop, yet lending discrimination, fraud, vandalism, and intimidation keep putting black farmers out of business. It isn’t just sugarcane.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Oct 30, 2018
Length: 15 minutes (3,950 words)

Cancer-linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water

Studies have shown that 3M-made “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (or PFAS, pronounced ‘PEE-fas’)” found in Teflon, Scotchgard, and fire-fighting foam have been linked to a weakened immune response and cancer. The chemicals contaminate the ground water around the 3M plant in Cotton Grove, Minnesota creating an “underground plume” of pollution that’s 100 square miles in size. The biggest problem? 3M knew of the dangers and has been covering it up for decades.

Published: Nov 2, 2018
Length: 23 minutes (5,908 words)

The American Civil War Didn’t End. And Trump is a Confederate President.

In her new column for The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit makes a solid argument that Donald Trump’s presidency, and his fervent support from white racists, mark an attempt of the Confederacy to rise again.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Nov 4, 2018
Length: 9 minutes (2,468 words)

The Secrets We Keep

A personal essay in which Deena ElGenaidi takes stock of the truths she and her Muslim family members hide from one another.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 5, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,651 words)

Theater of Forgiveness

A personal essay in which Hafizah Geter contemplates the personal and cultural legacy of violence against Black bodies.

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 2, 2018
Length: 32 minutes (8,050 words)

The Real Origins of Birthright Citizenship

Scholar Martha S. Jones offers a deep dive on pre- and post-Civil War origins of the birthright citizenship provision of the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Oct 31, 2018
Length: 6 minutes (1,526 words)