Daisy Bates in Mitchellville

The Prologue

Join producer Christian Leus as she travels to Mitchellville, Arkansas, a small Black town close to the Mississippi state line. Mitchellville’s story is little known even to Arkansans, but in the 1960s, it was the site of a high-profile civic improvement project started by civil rights leader Daisy Bates. In the first part of this two-part series, we’ll explore Mitchellville’s foundations and what it means to be a Black town. This episode is supported by the Arkansas Humanities Council.

In Conversation

For this special episode of Points South Live, we partnered with Grant’s Lounge and Visit Macon to host an evening of conversation and music exploring the legacy of one of the South’s greatest balladeers: Otis Redding. Join the OA’s Ashley Clayborn in conversation with Karla Redding-Andrews and Justin Andrews of the Otis Redding Foundation.

In Session

Listen as the Macon Music Revue perform ballads highlighting Georgia’s rich musical history. The Macon Music Revue features vocals by Charles Davis, with Sean Williams on bass, Ethan Hamlin on keys, Caleb Melvin on drums, and Dustin McCook on guitar. Sound recording by Mason Mishael.

The Prologue

In this two-part episode, producer Sara A. Lewis visits the South Carolina Sea Islands, where the triumphs and tragedies of Reconstruction have left a unique legacy. In Part II, join Sara on Hilton Head and St. Helena, two more islands where the promises of Reconstruction blossomed into independent, self-sufficient communities of formerly enslaved people. On Hilton Head, Sara visits Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, once the site of a self-governed Black community; on St. Helena, she explores the Penn School, the nation’s first school for emancipated slaves and home to a civil rights legacy that stretches into the 20th century and beyond. This episode features musical performance by Frankie James, Olivia Stith, Samantha Higgs, and Dominique Jones, with arrangement by Frankie James, and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the African American History Commission.

The Prologue

In this two-part episode, producer Sara A. Lewis visits the South Carolina Sea Islands, where the triumphs and tragedies of Reconstruction have left a unique legacy. In Part I, join Sara on Edisto Island, where formerly enslaved people owned land, built schools, and created prosperous communities all before the Emancipation Proclamation. Hear from scholars and local experts as they tell the story of Edisto’s inspiring successes, its unjust dissolution, and the marks that both have left on the island today. This episode features musical performance by Frankie James, Olivia Stith, Samantha Higgs, and Dominique Jones, with arrangement by Frankie James, and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the African American History Commission.

The Prologue

In this episode, Points South producer Sara A. Lewis investigates stories—why and how they’re told at some of the South’s most vital and complicated civil rights sites. Join Sara on a trip from Louisiana’s Whitney Plantation, where the forgotten stories of enslaved people take center stage; to Mitchelville, South Carolina, where the joyful history of emancipation is remembered and recreated; to Birmingham, Alabama, where the city seeks to preserve and interpret some of the greatest tragedies and triumphs of the 20th century civil rights movement. Along the way, Sara speaks to experts and educators to learn more about how telling these stories shapes our understandings of our histories, our homes, and ourselves.

The Prologue

In this episode, journalist Brittany Brown tells the story of Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm, a radical cooperative initiative that sought to bring food sovereignty to northern Mississippi. Join Brown as she speaks to experts to learn more about Hamer’s life and work, and visits a farm in Montgomery County, Mississippi, to discover how Hamer’s vision of environmental justice resonates with Black landowners today.

The Prologue

We head back to New Orleans to visit Storyville, the red-light district that made the city infamous in the early 20th century. Producer Christian Leus explores the history of the neighborhood and disentangles its complicated legacies of jazz, sex work, and social upheaval. Join Christian as she digs through archival audio and conducts new interviews with scholars to uncover what the myth of Storyville leaves out. Here, see more archival material from the district in its heyday.

The Prologue

In this episode, producer Christian Adam Brown travels to Santa Fe to meet Terry Allen and his wife, Jo Harvey Allen. Terry is a prolific artist, musician, and writer. His songs have been covered by Lucinda Williams, Sturgill Simpson, David Byrne, and many others. His visual artworks have been exhibited in The Met and MoMA. Terry’s radio work, which features the incredible theatrical performance work of Jo Harvey, challenged audiences when they were first broadcast. We bring segments of this work to you in this episode. Here, explore some visual examples of the pair's cross-medium work. (All images © Terry Allen and © Jo Harvey and courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.)

The Prologue

In this episode, cookbook author, chef, and teacher Andrea Nguyen travels to New Orleans East with producer Christian Adam Brown in search of an even deeper understanding of Vietnamese cuisine in New Orleans. Andrea and Christian meet the farmers that grow produce for this vibrant community and taste the ever popular King Cake. This episode also features Từ Nước (Of Water) - A New Orleans Tết, a new short film by Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill. It follows chef Nini Nguyễn, a New Orleans native, as she prepares a traditional feast for the 2023 Lunar New Year.

The Prologue

In this episode, cookbook author, chef, and teacher Andrea Nguyen travels to New Orleans with producer Christian Adam Brown to find the origins of Viet-Cajun food, a popular fusion that has been appearing at restaurants all over the United States. Join Andrea and Christian as they visit with several Vietnamese American restaurateurs to learn how they envision their own identities within the vibrant food culture of New Orleans. This episode also features Từ Nước (Of Water) - A New Orleans Tết, a new short film by Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill. It follows chef Nini Nguyễn, a New Orleans native, as she prepares a traditional feast for the 2023 Lunar New Year.

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.

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.

In Session

Transcendental indie folk band The Deer join KUTX host Elizabeth McQueen for an evening of live music and conversation at Long Play Lounge East in Austin, TX.

In Session

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.

In Session

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.

In Session

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.

In Session

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.