Darby Landy is standing at a piano, playing a slow-tempo and serene melody. It’s a semi-sunny Saturday, and the soft-spoken 24-year-old is about to explain why today finds him “ecstatic and relieved.” A long-time Triangle resident, Landy has just returned from one of his many trips to Philadelphia. Had things gone differently for him there, […]
Jon Elliston
Posted inElections
The hip-hop nation gets political
The 2004 election just got a whole lot cooler. And no, it’s not because MTV is “rockin’ the vote.” It’s because a newly published manifesto/guidebook is hitting the shelves–one that’s backed by an innovative collective of young activists who don’t just talk a good political game, they also insist on playing to win. The League […]
Posted inNews
The Indy Bookshelf
Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century Stan Goff Soft Skull Press, 224 pp., $13.95 From the outside, the military, like imperialism itself, can appear deceptively monolithic. Critics of both would do well to peek at the world through Stan Goff’s eyes, which are trained on the complexities and contradictions of U.S. […]
Posted inNews
New coalition joins the fight for freedom of information
On Tuesday, March 16, freedom of information advocates across the country will say a collective “Happy Birthday” to founding father James Madison, author of the First Amendment. They’ll also celebrate national Freedom of Information Day, an annual commemoration of the public’s right to know what goes on in government. In North Carolina, the date will […]
Posted inNews
Boston political charity expanding south
What’s a rich kid with a social conscience to do? Courtney Young was fresh out of college and working for a Boston-area women’s foundation when she began feeling “the conflict,” as she calls it. The daughter of a successful real estate developer who amassed substantial wealth for her family, Young realized that she had both […]
Posted inNews
She fought back
One June afternoon in 1961, Mabel Williams was at her home in Monroe, a town near Charlotte. She was watching her two young boys while her husband, Robert, was out delivering copies of The Crusader, the Williams’ home-published newsletter that urged Southern blacks to wage armed resistance against white supremacy. When Robert’s car suddenly came […]
Posted inNews
Collateral damages
At first glance, Amy and Wyatt Blalock’s 10-acre homestead in rural Granville County appears to be a sweet spot for a young couple to live. Their house sits in a clearing on a hill surrounded by forests and streams. But look a little closer, and there are signs that the tranquility masks a potentially explosive […]
Posted inNews
The journalist and the G-men
In a long-forgotten chapter of his career, a young Charles Kuralt unexpectedly became CBS’s one-man news bureau in Latin America at the height of the Cold War. Newly released FBI documents show what a tough beat it was, and offer reminders that when national security concerns run high, even patriotic journalists can come under government […]
Posted inNews
Oswald calling?
Here we go again, into the hall of mirrors that is the JFK assassination. With the 40th anniversary on Saturday, Nov. 22, the murder of the young president is the subject of intense media coverage and solemn memorials. For a select group, the remaining hardcore Kennedy assassination researchers, the anniversary brings something more: a renewed […]
Posted inNews
The Indy Bookshelf
The Hornet’s Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War By Jimmy Carter Simon & Schuster, 465 pp., $27.00 Can it really be true that Jimmy Carter is the first president of the United States to publish a novel? So claims a blurb on his new book, and I’ve no good reason to doubt it. I’m […]
