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Eric Johnson at home in Wise, North Carolina

Opportunity’s Dance with One North Carolina Family

It was 1968. Arnetra Johnson, a black woman raising four bright-eyed babies alone in a rural North Carolina trailer park, was holding fast to the dream just as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had laid it out: black boys and white boys sitting

Charlise Lyles November 18, 1992
James Hogan’s problems started in 1989 when he borrowed and then paid $6,200 to a home-repair contractor in Atlanta to fix his roof and do other work. His attorney says an independent appraiser later asses the value of the work at $3,474. Fleet Finance tried to evict Hogan from his home. Photo by APF Fellow Michael Hudson

Loan Scams

Some days it seems like the phone at Annie Ruth Bennett’s house in southwest Atlanta won’t ever stop ringing. The callers want to sell her storm windows, debt–consolidation loans, burial plots. Her attorney says it’s all a scheme: They want to steal a

Michael Hudson November 15, 1992
Abortion remains the chief form of birth control in Russia. This rudimentary clinic for young girls in St. Petersburg operates as an assembly line, with one patient exiting as two wait in line.

Life and Death in St. Petersburg

As the first snow of the season fell on St. Petersburg, Russia, Svetlana, 17, sat with two new acquaintances on a bench. They talked, giggled, and waited. Three hours later, they would continue their conversation in the ladies room, over cigarettes, as they

Jason Eskenazi November 14, 1992
Rev. Robert Schaenck of Buffalo, NY holds a 17 to 19 week old fetus outside of the hotel where Bill Clinton was staying during the Democratic National Convention in New York. AP/Wide World photo

Project Rachael: Regretting Abortions

“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children…because they were no more.” Jeremiah, Chapter 31, Verse 15. Gina’s hands move constantly. She never looks directly at the other women around the table. Her frail frame and

Alissa Rubin November 14, 1992
A Watauga County, NC farmer and his OPEC independent equipment get an early, steady start in the tobacco field.

Staying in the Southern Highlands Against the Odds

Photos and article by APF Fellow Dorothea Jackson There is a flat room-sized rock that sticks out into a pool in Big Santeetlah Creek, which borders Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in Graham County, N.C. The place is called Rattler’s Ford, a name that

Dorothea Jackson November 14, 1992
A villager holds three liquor bottles for use in the fiesta celebrations of the Guatemalan village of Todos Santos. He is a member of Cofradia, a religious brotherhood.

Happiness and Despair in Guatemala

A young boy participates in the holy week procession in Santiago, Atitlan. A boy enjoys the festive day as crowds gather in front of the church in Todos Santos. The village of Todos Santos celebrates its name-sake holiday, All Saints Day, with an

Vince Heptig August 29, 1992
Hundreds of youths marched on Lexington Avenue on July 17, 1964 to the 67th Street police station to protest the death of James Powell, who was killed the night before by a police lieutenant. Photo by AP Wide World Photos

How a Campaign for Racial Trust Turned Sour

Glamorous young mayor John Lindsay had been in office all of two months when he threw down the gauntlet on the issue of civilian police review. The occasion, in February 1966, was the inauguration of a new police chief, a man known to

Tamar Jacoby August 18, 1992
NEW YORK--Traders at the New York Merchantile Exchange bid on oil contracts amid falling prices. AP/Wide World Photo

Approaching Financial Meltdown

On March 27, an Azerbaijani missile hit an Aeroflot jet and bounced off without exploding. But the news broke into bank trading rooms as rumors of war between Russia and the Ukraine, sending shivers throughout the international currency market. SIDEBAR – What, Me

Gregory Millman August 18, 1992
Protests in Harlem in 1964 erupted after policeman Thomas Gilligan shot a 15-year-old black youth, James Powell, to death on July 16th. Gilligan said the shooting was self-defense. The killing precipitated several days of violence in Harlem. Photo by AP Wide World Photos

How a Campaign for Racial Trust Turned Sour

Glamorous young mayor John Lindsay had been in office all of two months when he threw down the gauntlet on the issue of civilian police review. The occasion, in February 1966, was the inauguration of a new police chief, a man known to

Tamar Jacoby August 13, 1992
Gay families are becoming more public and finding greater acceptance.

A Gay Family

Photos by Marc Geller Derek grew up in Washington, D.C. in a strong, stable dual income family with a number of brothers and sisters. He was trained as an accountant and made rapid progress; by his late twenties he was named head of

Frank Browning August 9, 1992
Farms across the entire Appalachian region have at least a few rows of Christmas trees growing, now that western North Carolina has become the nation’s major source of holiday trees. This small Christmas tree farm is in Pickens County, South Carolina. Photo by APF Fellow Dorothea Jackson

The Ways and Means of Holding on in the Highlands

If one only had an aviator cap of thin, fine leather, with earflaps and a chin strap that one snapped in a gesture of importance while settling into the feed trough, er, cockpit, one could shout, “Contack!” (an important aviator word) with a

Dorothea Jackson August 7, 1992
McDonnell Douglas’ huge long-range airliner, planned for 1997, would have had its wings built in Taiwan under an arrangement crafted in part by Brock, who now represents the Taiwanese. Drawing Courtesy of McConnell Douglas

Bill Brock’s Global Visions

Former U.S. Trade Representative William Brock and John McDonnell, the chairman of McDonnell Douglas Corp., were talking at a business conference in southern California about two years ago when the conversation turned to the company’s future. McDonnell Douglas, a $17 billion-a-year enterprise, was

Steven Dryden May 11, 1992
At Chimbai, in the delta of the Amu River, the plentiful fish from the nearby Aral Sea used to be part of the daily diet. Now the market offers only a handful of fish from local canals.

How the Soviets Destroyed a Sea in Thirty Years

Muynak, Uzbekistan – In this frightened town, life has always meant fishing. Men’s faces are leathered by lifetimes on the Aral Sea; their arms thickened by the weight of countless nets hauled from the waters. The women’s hands are scarred from millions of

James Rupert May 10, 1992
The view near the top of the Appalachian range at Craggy Gardens, on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville. Mist and clouds brush the mountain tops after a spring rain. The rhododendron gardens are natures own.

Living at Home: Money and Migration

Photos and text by APF Fellow Dorothea Jackson The Old South Carolina highway that snaked through the first wave of the Blue Ridge Mountains ends now in Lake Keowee. Literally, just short of where a covered bridge used to span the formidable green

Dorothea Jackson May 8, 1992
In an annual tribute to early settlement, a wagon train moves into Tatham Gap, outside Andrews, North Carolina. Some of the road ahead is dirt, though much improved since thousands of Cherokee Indians were herded along it in 1838, on the first 12 miles of the Trail of Tears.

How It Was: The Bedrock of the Appalachian Dilemma

Photos and Article by APF Fellow Dorothea Jackson. It is spring and along the Daniel Boone Parkway, between London and Hazard, Kentucky, yellow wildflowers bloom from the fractured stone faces of mountains that have been dynamited open for the passage of the road.

Dorothea Jackson February 14, 1992
A semiconductor chip, which technological advances have allowed to be made smaller and smaller. The chip trade is one of the touchiest parts of U.S. and Japanese trade relations. Photo Courtesy of Melgar Photography, Santa Clara, CA

The Quiet Renewal of the Japan Chip Pact

When Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Linn Williams entered the White House Cabinet Room late in May of 1991, he was feeling both exhilarated and apprehensive. Just a few days earlier, he had completed months of delicate negotiations renewing the U.S.-Japanese agreement governing trade

Steven Dryden February 11, 1992
Connie Taylor and three of her eight children. They live in a housing project owned by the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Understanding America’s Poverties and Drowning Mothers

Michael Harrington once wrote that one ought not to talk about “poverty” but about poverties. He meant there are so many ways of being poor that no single description or analysis can apply to them all. The same thing is true of homelessness.

Peter Marin February 11, 1992
Karabakh official and fighters Prepare to board an MI-8 helicopter from Yerevan to Karabakh.

The Fulcrum that Could Rock Russia and Iran

Photos by APF Fellow James Rupert BAKU, Azerbaijan–In the western Azerbaijani town of Agdam, Fazil Gassimov is a respected man. He is a former school director and collective farm manager who wears his 52 years, like his sweater vest and tweed jacket, with

James Rupert February 10, 1992