Longreads

A personal essay in which Joshua Adams, a Black graduate of the University of Virginia, traces the roots of the recent racist attack there back to UVA’s problematic but venerated founder, Thomas Jefferson.

Souad Mekhennet’s thrilling tale of late-night rendezvous, burner phones, and secret codes — and her quest to reveal the man in black. Excerpted from I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad.

A personal essay in which Lindsay Hunter, author of the novel Eat Only When You’re Hungry, unpacks the factors and childhood experiences informing her complicated relationship to food, eating, and body image.

A personal essay in which writer Kevin Sampsell struggles to understand and accept the ravages of Alzheimer’s on his elderly mother’s memory — and quality of life.

A personal essay in which Leigh Shulman writes about learning about human behavior while studying primates at a refuge in Bolivia. Volunteering there with her nine-year-old daughter also provides perspective on the meaning of home and belonging.

Fifty years ago, the merchants of Haight-Ashbury advertised a summer of free food, free lodging, and free love. What they got instead was a civic nightmare.

For years, historians have blamed King Leopold of Belgium. But did they fall for Allied propaganda?

Women of color are disproportionately targeted by the war on drugs and broken windows policing.

A personal essay in which writer Mabel Rosenheck considers her nostalgia for a key time in her life: the summer of 2003, when she was a young, depressed adult attending the Surf & Skate music festival in Asbury Park with friends in a similar emotional space, whom she’d met on the internet.

A personal essay in which Kate Abbott writes about helping her 8-year-old atheist son navigate the Cub Scouts’ “Duty to God” requirement.