General
In Florida, Fighting One Public Nuisance with Another
(June 3, 2012) In Florida, they are as much a part of the landscape as palm trees and oceanfront hotels: plastic signs cluttering roadsides with messages like “We Buy Houses!” “Junk Cars!” and “Avoid Foreclosure!” But now, worried about the impact on tourism and the state’s natural beauty, some coastal communities have begun aggressive campaigns against the signs — by robocalling the advertisers’ phone numbers. “It’s the only crime I know of where a person deliberately leaves their phone number behind,” said Mayor Peter Bober of Hollywood, which uses computer software to call the phone numbers, up to 20 times per day, until offenders pay a $75 fine. “They want us to call. So let’s call. And keep calling.” Think of it as fighting one nuisance with another.
Read MoreSlave Graveyard May Block a Walmart’s Construction
(May 16, 2012) FLORENCE, Ala. — Dianne O’Neal still lives on the rustic cattle farm that her husband’s family has owned since his great-great-great-grandfather purchased the land in the 1830s. She still stays in a log cabin built from chestnut trees that his ancestors chopped by hand. But one aspect of the family’s long history here in northern Alabama is not so well preserved: Coffee Cemetery, an overgrown one-acre graveyard where the ancestors of her husband, Edward O’Neal, and their slaves are buried. That has become a pressing matter in Florence because Walmart plans to build a store right next to the graveyard. The O’Neals’ biggest concern is that nobody knows exactly where their ancestors’ 80 slaves are buried.
Read MoreAt This Atlanta Barbershop, the Conversation Goes on 24/7
(April 29, 2012) ATLANTA — It is 1 a.m., but the night is young for Dre Rosenberg, a 22-year-old clothing stylist here. Later, he will grab drinks with friends and hit the nightclubs in Atlanta’s wealthiest neighborhood, Buckhead. But first he needs a haircut. So Mr. Rosenberg goes to one of the few places still open at that hour: the 24-hour barbershop Anytime Cutz. “Three a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m.,” he said. “It’s where you find your friends before the end of your night.” This is the barbershop that never closes. And that has made it something of a cult institution in this Southern capital that relishes its fashion and night life.
Read MoreCitadel Split by Republican Presidential Primary
(Jan. 21, 2012) CHARLESTON, S.C. — At the Citadel, cadets wear matching uniforms, march in lockstep and endure rigorous physical training together. But these days, the Republicans among them — and they are overwhelmingly Republican — are divided on a crucial issue: whom to support as the next commander in chief. The Citadel, a public military college, is an almost mandatory stop for presidential candidates, especially Republicans. Its fortress-like buildings and clean-cut students make an ideal backdrop as politicians court South Carolina voters, 9 percent of whom are veterans. But unlike in the 2008 election, when the Citadel and its powerful alumni united behind Senator John McCain, the current cadets are still making up their minds.
Read MoreBefore Presidential Primary, Republicans Reach Out to Black Voters
(Jan. 17, 2012) MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — On Martin Luther King’s Birthday, Newt Gingrich spoke to black voters about growing up in segregated Georgia. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said he had appointed a “descendant of slaves” as the Texas Supreme Court’s first black justice. And Mitt Romney said “we must never rest” until Americans are judged for their merits, not their race. The Republican presidential candidates spent the holiday on Monday reaching out to wary black Americans. In the struggle for every last vote, some candidates were hoping to appeal to a small number of black voters in the South Carolina primary on Saturday — even if those voters end up supporting President Obama in the fall. The King holiday gave the all-white Republican field an opportunity to speak about race — and their work on civil rights — as the candidates try to unseat the nation’s first black president. But it is a challenge to reach black voters in South Carolina, where they made up only 2 percent of Republican primary voters in 2008.
Read MoreUneasy Neighbors in a Southern Gothic Tale
(Jan. 13, 2012) LAURENS, S.C. — The Redneck Shop has been selling Confederate bikinis and white satin robes on the historic courthouse square in this former mill town for so long that most people have learned to ignore it. “The only people who really get caught up and interested in the store are from out of town,” said Sharon Brownlee, the mayor, who is white. “The store causes no problems that I’m aware of.” That is a matter of perspective. Since 1996, the Rev. David Kennedy, who is black, has been fighting the shop and the Ku Klux Klan leader who runs it. Now, in a quirk of fate laced with lawsuits, religious conversions and a small-town Southern narrative Harper Lee might deliver, a black pastor will eventually control what just might be the most famous white supremacist shop in America.
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