You Always Return

The Prologue

In this episode, Oxford American contributing editor Diane Roberts travels to Rabun County, Georgia, to visit the campgrounds owned by Lillian Smith, the author of Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream. Roberts investigates how the environment of the campgrounds shaped Smith, a white activist and writer who worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, and others to disrupt white supremacy. This episode includes newly discovered audio of the voice of Lillian Smith, calling out to us in the present through her enduring legacy.

The Prologue

In this episode, Marfa Public Radio’s Annie Rosenthal and Points South producer Christian Adam Brown revisit the unusual history found at the sites of OA contributor Sasha von Oldershausen’s essay, “The Camel Experiment.” Travel to Texas and meet Doug Baum and his Texas Camel Corps, survey the remnants of a mid-19th century military experiment that helped pave the way for the U.S.’s westward expansion. Follow along as Christian and Annie visit Quartzsite, Arizona, to learn about Hadji Ali, a Muslim immigrant who served as a military camel driver and is now memorialized as a folk hero.

This episode was produced by Sara A. Lewis, Christian Adam Brown, and Annie Rosenthal. Thanks to Curtis Fye and Trey Pollard of Spacebomb for our series sound design and score. Additional sound design and score by Christian Adam Brown. Thanks to Doug Baum, Téa Obreht, Gary Nabhan, and Lynn Stimson for their time and insights. And a special thanks to Farooq Ahmed for his guidance.

The Prologue

In this episode, OA contributor Logan Scherer returns to a topic that has been his persistent curiosity for nearly a decade: romantic male friendships. Grappling with how to define his own relationship with his best friend, Logan explores the archives and accounts of 19th century men who clasped hands, hugged, shared tears, wrote deeply intimate letters to one another, and shared beds. Logan conducts new interviews with Dr. Anya Jabour, Dr. Sergio Lussana, and writer Brontez Purnell to explore the unique history of bedfellows who are, for him, “queerer…than any form of intimacy…in the twenty-first-century.”

The Prologue

Welcome back to Points South! In this first episode of our third season, OA contributor David Ramsey revisits the Old Regular Baptists of Blackey, Kentucky, to hear the congregation’s distinctive style of singing and preaching. In Old Regular Baptist churches, the human voice is the sole instrument, singing lined-out hymnody, a tradition that began in parish churches in England in the early 1600s. You’ll hear the voices of the Old Regular Baptists as they sing, new interviews with music scholar Jeff Titon, and David Ramsey’s own reflections about his experience with these rare and unique sounds.

Points South Live: The Deer and Elizabeth McQueen

Points South Live: Clarence Heyward and Jenn Wasner

Songwriter Jenn Wasner of Flock of Dimes plays live from 21c Durham Museum and Hotel, chatting with Brooklyn-born visual artist Clarence Heyward and OA Editor Danielle A. Jackson.

Points South Live: Margo Price, Jodi Hays, and Alice Randall

Live from 21c Nashville Museum and Hotel, country songwriter and memoirist Margo Price performs live and chats with painter Jodi Hays and author, songwriter, and OA Guest Editor Alice Randall.

Points South Live: Buffalo Nichols and Oluwatobi Adewumi

Blues songwriter Buffalo Nichols plays live from 21c Bentonville Museum and Hotel, and chats with multimedia visual artist Oluwatobi Adewumi and University of Arkansas Black Student Caucus spokesperson Tyrah Jackson.

The Prologue

The 1898 Wilmington Massacre was a violent attack on the city's thriving African American community, one of a series of coups that took place after the Civil War. Through interviews with local historians, OA contributor KaToya Ellis Fleming investigates the backlash to Wilmington's Black leadership and the legacy of the Wilmington Massacre.

Photos of Alex Manly and the Daily Record staff courtesy Alex L. Manly Papers (#65), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, East Carolina University.

In Session

A performance by American folk duo Birds of Chicago from the 30A Songwriters Festival.

The Prologue

In this special episode, poet Tess Taylor reflects on the rich and naturalistic poetry of Virginian Anne Spencer. We're honored to partner with the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum, Inc. Archives on this segment, which marks the first time listeners can hear Anne Spencer's voice outside of the museum's archives. Spencer’s work offers glimpses into the warm refuge she cultivated for black writers and innovators in the South.

In Session

A performance by Richmond native and singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus from the 30A Songwriters Festival. Dacus’s latest album, Home Video, is available now.

The Prologue

Texas journalist Michelle García investigates the history of the U.S.–Mexico border and the violent response to Black Lives Matter protests in the Rio Grande Valley.

Photo by Joe Yates via Unsplash

In Session

A performance by Adia Victoria from the 30A Songwriter’s Festival.
Photo by Huy Nguyen

In Conversation

Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes) joins managing editor Danielle A. Jackson in conversation for the OA’s 22nd anniversary music issue, guest edited by Howard.

This Greatest Hits music issue is available at OxfordAmericanGoods.org and hits newsstands nationwide December 1. Brittany Howard’s latest album Jaime and single Jaime (The Remixes) are available now.

In Session

`Milwaukee-based folk band Dead Horses performs at BlakeSt in Bentonville, Arkansas and chats with Bryan and Bernice Hembree (Smokey and the Mirror), co-founders of the Fayetteville Roots Festival.

Dead Horses is Sarah Vos (vocals, guitar), Daniel Wolff (upright bass, vocals), and James Gallagher (percussion). Their latest EP, Birds, is available now.

In Conversation

Emily Gogolak investigates Dilley, Texas, home to the largest immigration detention center in the country. Featuring interviews recorded for Gogolak’s essay “An Intersection at the End of America” from our Spring 2020 issue, available now. Emily Gogolak’s reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

In Adaptation

Lavinia Jones Wright reads from “Skyline Drive,” a memoir of driving the scenic byway her grandfather helped build in the 1930s.

Composed and Co-Produced by Trey Pollard of Spacebomb

In Session

A performance by Gospel Rocker Parker Millsap.

Magazine Feature

Julian Rankin, director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, visits the artist’s sacred place, an island off the coast of Mississippi, and meditates on the conditions that influenced Anderson’s art.

Read Julian Rankin’s essay “Sacred Place” from the Fall 2019 issue.

In Conversation

Mary Miller, author of Biloxi.

In Session

A performance by John Paul White.

The Prologue

Known as Arkansas’s “cemetery angel,” Ruth Coker Burks provided end-of-life care for patients with AIDS in Hot Springs during the height of the crisis and buried their remains in her family’s cemetery.

In Adaptation

“Three Encounters” by John Jeremiah Sullivan.
Performed by MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger.

Produced by Spacebomb and Maxwell George

In Session

A Fayetteville Roots Festival performance by Los Texmaniacs.

The Prologue

Ken Burns and Rhiannon Giddens discuss the legibility of African and African-American contributions to country music—from the Carter Family to Lil Nas X—and how that influence has been erased in the American consciousness.

Featuring Ken Burns, Rhiannon Giddens, and Julie Dunfey

In Conversation

Documentarians Julie Dunfey and Ken Burns on the soundscape of Country Music.

In Session

Dom Flemons performs from Black Cowboys live from the Oxford American stage

Editors' Roundtable

OA Editors discuss the upcoming South Carolina Music Issue and share their favorite stories and behind-the-scenes moments. Plus: A preview of the issue’s tracklist.

Featuring Eliza Borné, Maxwell George, Jay Jennings, and Hannah Saulters.

In Conversation

Deputy Editor Maxwell George with OA contributor David Ramsey.

Read David Ramsey’s essay “Like a Shovel and a Rope”.

Top 5

Maxwell George shares his favorite Southern Music Issue moments.

Points South Live

In our first episode of Points South Live, pop string band Front Country plays live from BlakeSt in Bentonville, Arkansas, and chats with Bryan Hembree (Smokey & The Mirror), co-founder of the Fayetteville Roots Festival.

Front Country is Melody Walker (vocals, guitar, percussion), Jacob Groopman (guitar, resophonic guitar, mandolin, vocals), Adam Roszkiewicz (mandolin, banjo, vocals), and P.J. George (bass). Their latest single, “The Reckoning,” is available now.

The Prologue

The story of Clyde Kennard, the first person to attempt desegregation at the University of Southern Mississippi.

In Conversation

Sarah M. Broom, National Book Award-winning author of The Yellow House

In Session

A performance from the No Tears Suite, an original jazz composition commissioned by the OA to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the desegregation crisis at Little Rock’s Central High School.

Featuring Kelley Hurt, Chris Parker, Brian Blade, Bill Huntington, Bobby LaVell, Marc Franklin, and Chad Fowler.