Category: Politics

The Proto-Feminists of Early America

11/11/2017

Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, Vice President John Adams about the 1793 Valmy Celebrations, where women marched in the streets with men in support of the French Revolution.

Read my new piece on OZY!

Just in time for election day, OZY published my piece on how early feminists in the U.S. got inspiration from women participating in the French Revolution. This story was inspired by an essay in Riot and Revelry in Early America, a book that explores the celebrations, parades, and traditions that helped create American culture, even if they have been forgotten.

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Today's Folk Music & the Protest Roots

9/3/2017

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Read my profile of Eli Smith on OZY.

This past April, I had the opportunity to attend the Brooklyn Folk Festival in New York City's most hipster borough. The event was co-founded and is produced by Eli Smith, the multi-instrumentalist string band musician of the Down Hill Strugglers. The music he booked was a curated experience of great folk and traditional bands from New York and across the country. His music is deeply rooted in the history of folk and traditional music in the United States, and he brings in the complexity of that history when he books other acts too. And through this type of music, he wants people to create, think, and resist.

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Rewriting History: The Lee-Jackson Statue in Baltimore

6/5/2017

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You never know what you'll find in a box.

Last year, my friend Erik found a recording titled "Dr. Freeman's speech dedicating the Lee-Jackson Monument in Wyman Park" in a friend's record collection. The 33 1/3 LP was homemade, and the fact that it dealt with a seemingly out-of-place confederate statue in a city park about two miles from his house intrigued him.
He shared the recording with me, and I knew the story of the recording had to be told through audio. My radio-producer friend Nadia Ramlagan and I started researching the the speech, the event, the artist, the donation, and produced a radio piece that aired last week on the Marc Steiner Show.
The story explores the history of the statue, and how that history should be a part of the debate about what to do with the confederate monuments in Baltimore today.

1948 cover of Baltimore Magazine, with a feature story on the monument.

Listen to the piece and explore our research.

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The Laserman

9/23/2016

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Read my new article on OZY.com about the Laserman, the Swedish serial killer.

At a time when a nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment was sweeping through Sweden, a political party took advantage. The New Democracy party fed on those fears, and created a space where Swedes could "say what they thought." One result? A man got the idea that it would be OK to shoot immigrants with a laser-sighted rifle. Read the article for more, and if you speak Swedish, check out the Sveriges Radio P3 Dokumentär that informed some of my reporting.

A police sketch of the Laserman, courtesy of the Swedish Police Museum.

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Votes for Women!

8/23/2016

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Friday is Women's Equality Day, and given Hillary's nomination, now seems about as good a time as any to see some images from the women's suffrage movement.

"The greatest thrills of the campaign came with the street parades.... I marched in one in Baltimore and in the famous one staged in Washington the day before the first inauguration of President Wilson.... The professional women in cap and gown, lawyers, doctors, teachers and students formed a conspicous section of the parade." - Dr. Lillian Welsh, Reminiscences of Thirty Years in Baltimore