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Report for America Report for America
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Corps Essays

Defending the Public Library in Victoria

Report for America|March 30, 2019December 3, 2019

VICTORIA, Texas — The City Council chambers usually feels quiet, and often a little stiff. Council members meet in the same chamber used by the municipal court judge, and it’s apparent. Elected officials sit on a raised dais and feel far away from the public they serve. The city’s public library, on the other hand,

Bearing Witness to the Human Consequences of U.S. Immigration Policy

Report for America|November 30, 2018April 25, 2019

On the Ground in EL PASO, Texas — At dusk on a Friday night in October, big, white buses pull up near the Greyhound station and dozens of parents and children emerge. Some clutch important documents or carry plastic bags filled with precious possessions. They file into the station, with its tile floors and green metal

What the Emmett Till Case Taught Me About Journalism and Mississippi’s Unfinished History

Report for America|November 15, 2018April 26, 2019

On the Ground in SUMNER, Mississippi — The courthouse where Emmett Till’s murderers were acquitted has been restored to look like it did during his 1956 trial, when his abduction, torture and murder shocked and shamed the nation. It’s an unassuming and stately building. Rows of identical brown seats face the flags of Mississippi and

A Journalist’s Dilemma: Wanting to Do More to Help Than Tell a Story

Report for America|November 2, 2018November 21, 2018

On the Ground — On a muggy July evening, I sat on the dusty wooden floor of a cluttered one-bedroom house in Fitzgerald, Georgia, with notebook and pen in hand. Andres Diego and his wife, Wyona, sat across from me on a leaky queen-sized air mattress, speaking softly over the hum of a window unit on

How the Story I Never Wrote Led Me to a Story That Needed to be Told

Report for America|October 25, 2018November 21, 2018

On the Ground — Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, one of the state’s three main prisons, is located in a sparse pocket of the town of Pearl, a few minutes outside of Jackson. To reach its gates, I drove south from the newsroom one July morning, exiting the interstate and winding through a couple of two-lane roads

A portrait of struggle and violence in Mississippi

Report for America|October 18, 2018May 20, 2020

On the Ground in JACKSON, Miss. — It was almost Independence Day and Lee Eric Evans straightened a flag pole on his aunt’s front porch and respectfully unfurled an American flag so that it hung properly. He wanted to make sure it didn’t touch the ground. It was July 3 and Lee, 26, was fussing

How I found a place in journalism by telling the story of Hispanics in Dallas

Report for America|October 11, 2018November 21, 2018

On the Ground — Nothing beats the downtown Dallas skyline at dusk. The bright green glow of Bank of America Plaza. The flashing lights of Reunion Tower. The orange fade of the western sky reflecting on every window around. This sight has always inspired faith in me. Not faith in a higher power or religion, but

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