In Atlanta, Every Day Was MLK Day

If You Grow Up Black in King’s Hometown, You Can’t Help But See His Story Intertwine with Your Own

To grow up in Atlanta is to be always aware of the story of Martin Luther King, Jr., and to see it intertwine with your own fate.

I was born there in 1978, less than a mile from the house where King grew up. As a schoolchild, I like others, visited Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue—the street where King was born, worked, died, and is honored. To see King’s neighborhood, and the home he was born in, humanized him for us children, letting us know that he was once young like us, …

by Errin Whack | January 19, 2015

New Orleans Is My Second Language

We Lived in Los Angeles, But My Mother’s Songs, Stories, Cooking—and Most of All the Way She Spoke—Made Louisiana Feel Like Home

by Lynell George | September 26, 2014

For a time, most likely between the ages of 5 and 8, I floated around with a secret: a dogged yet utterly erroneous notion that my family spoke a second …

Where Can You Dance to the Washboard in L.A.?

The Louisiana Creole Sound of Zydeco Music Is Tough to Categorize—and Tough to Find Outside of New Orleans, Unless You Know Where to Look

by Julius DiLorenzo | July 29, 2014

It’s not every day that Angelenos stumble upon a washboard, an accordion, and a pot of gumbo all within the county limits.

Maybe that’s because they aren’t looking hard enough. Hidden …

Defying Jim Crow To Shag

by Tom Poland | October 9, 2012

I went to high school in Lincoln County, Georgia, during the dwindling days of Jim Crow. I didn’t understand all that was changing right in front of me. Elijah Clark …

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