Sublime

Elvis’s life before fame featured repeated experiences with humiliation, but he also experienced something else characteristic of the South and the United States in general: the wages of Whiteness. An effort to place Elvis more accurately in history doesn’t just require a recognition that he saw his indebtedness to Black musicians. It also means th

One afternoon, many months later, when I continued interviewing Walter for a profile I decided to write, I blurted out to him, “I love Charleston, but it feels different from Savannah.” He said, “Charleston has a lot of transplants. People from up North.” Characteristically he withheld what might be a withering judgment. No excess needed. I didn’t

David Teiger, a New York–based collector in his late seventies.

On September 12, 2013, I reported Avomeen’s results in an article titled “How Chris McCandless Died,” which was published on The New Yorker website.

Wilbert Tatum, the editor and publisher of the Amsterdam News, tried to explain to Kurtz how, in his view, Sharpton had been cast as “a caricature of black leadership”:

Appalachia is a vast territory. Its natural resources fueled the nation’s growth in the industrial age.

Culturally speaking, Atlanta is the bright star of the South that we steadily watch, even if with disdain. Atlanta is the cutting edge on unsteady ground. The Black queer mecca, the heart of the Black music industry, the place where McMansions are maintained, pristinely, by the descendants of domestics who now pay somebody else to clean their house

At the airport, leaving Nashville, I had a taste for something sweet. I stood in front of the vending machine, trying to find a treat that was both satisfying and not too bad for me. Ridiculous, I know. To my left, a White man hovered. He was pale and small with a drawn face. He had a cap on, and a dark blue uniform that hung on him, leaving his br

Wells was best known as a journalist for exposing the lies behind the justification for lynching. Negroes charged with recklessly eyeballing a White woman, or worse, were often people who had found prosperity and respect despite the constraints of Jim Crow. The lynchings put them back in their place. Wells nearly met a similar fate, but escaped as