Traveling with Twain

In Search of America's Identity

Featured

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 >>

Mark Twain and Elvis Presley: Blood Brothers?

Blame it on the music madness of Memphis—see Dan Tham’s videos of the marching-to-music ducks at the Peabody Hotel below—but a visit to Graceland, Elvis Presley’s mansion, has me thinking that Mark Twain and Elvis the … Read more >>

Dwania Kyles talks about surviving the “N” word and more as one of the Memphis 13

A half-century has passed since Dwania Kyles, a wellness consultant in New York, made history as one of the Memphis 13, first-graders who desegregated the all-white public schools of Memphis. She has returned to Memphis for … Read more >>

Slave descendant John F. Baker Jr. teaches us about Wessyngton Plantation

The parents of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) moved with slaves to Missouri, where he was born, from Tennessee, where he was conceived. So we sought a Tennessee location where we could experience the life and death … Read more >>

Small Jamestown, Tennessee makes the most of Mark Twain

While Mark Twain never visited or lived in Jamestown, Tennessee, the town makes the most of its claim that Mark Twain was conceived somewhere, sometime within its borders. Skidmore Garrett, attorney and owner of the Mark … Read more >>