Traveling with Twain

In Search of America's Identity

Posts by Loren Ghiglione (view all)

David Beckley transforms Rust College and its student body

In traveling the country, I’m often impressed by those who do not travel—people who stay put and devote their lives to transforming institutions. During my visit to Holly Springs, Mississippi, I visit David Beckley, in his … Read more >>

Cooking a Five-Star Twain Dream Meal at an 1831 Mansion

We spend another day driving south, today through three Mississippi river towns famous in part for their connection to the life of Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) as a steamboat pilot—what he called “the only unfettered and … Read more >>

Tri-State Defender celebrates its 60th anniversary of keeping the African-American voice alive in Memphis

We interview Bernal E. Smith II, publisher of the Tri-State Defender, the day before the Memphis weekly newspaper, which also serves nearby Arkansas and Mississippi, celebrates its sixtieth anniversary. Our conversation with Smith, which focuses on … Read more >>

Non-profit “Baby Steps” is a success story in mostly poor Okolona, Mississippi

After seven weeks of visiting places that remind us of America’s problems (prison, homeless camp, lynching site) we decide to search for places that are helping to solve the country’s problems. We discover Baby Steps, a … Read more >>

Trying to pinpoint a spy from the Freedom Summer: Our visit to Rust College in Holly Springs, MS

In 1998, while directing the journalism program at Emory University, I received a chilling telephone call from Emory law professor David J. Garrow. Garrow said that my name showed up in the recently released, 134,000-page file … Read more >>