“I’d heard that moan in the presence of older Southern black folk my entire life, but I’d never heard it connecting two rhymed verses. Art couldn’t get any fresher than that.”
Mississippi
Posted inEditor's Pick
Second and Long
“Why did James Whitehead—poet, fiction writer, and onetime college football player—fail to complete a successor to his celebrated first novel?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Crossed Signals
“Joe Hazard donated the land for a cross that towered over Mayhaw, Mississippi. He never dreamed his generosity would spark a divine comedy.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
To Understand Mississippi, I Went to Spain
“The forces that would shape my home state’s violent history were set in motion by a 480-year-old map made by a Spanish explorer.”
Posted inNonfiction
More Than a Feeling: A Blues Reading List
A hundred years on from its birth, the music continues to speak to the heart — an art form that also serves as social commentary, communal history, and cathartic release.
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘State-Sanctioned Violence:’ Inside One of the Thousands of Schools That Still Paddle Students
According to an analysis by The Hechinger Report, 150 schools in eight states across the U.S. used corporal punishment, or a form of physical pain, on 20% or more of their students that year. Sixty-nine of those schools, such as Collins Elementary School, are in Mississippi. Tara Garcia Mathewson investigates how and why this practice […]
Posted inNonfiction
The Mysterious Case of Mr. X
For eight years, a man with amnesia lived at a hospital in Mississippi. Who was he — and why had no one come looking for him?
Posted inEditor's Pick
Reporter’s Notebook: The Power of Proximity
“A behind-the-scenes look at a year-long investigation into Mississippi’s laws that automatically put some kids as young as 13 into adult prisons and jails.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘A Profound Betrayal of Trust’: Why Jackson’s Water System Is Broken
“How a shrinking city, aging infrastructure and racism left thousands of Jacksonians without water for weeks.”
Posted inNonfiction
Truly Seeing the River: An Interview with Writer Boyce Upholt
Writing about the culture and beauty of the Mississippi Delta requires seeing the mighty river as more than a line of water.