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Willie Brown: The Early Years
Dallas, Texas-On a drizzly January morning earlier this year, a crowd of politicians and lobbyists from California jammed into the Good Street Baptist Church, a modest brick building in the heart of Dallas’s black neighborhood. The power elite of the nation’s most populous
Photo Essay: Gangs of East Los Angeles
Joseph Rodriguez, a freelance photographer who has worked for Pacific News Service, National Geographic and Black Star and is now affiliated with AnarchyImages.com, is photographing the gangs of East Los Angeles during his Alicia Patterson fellowship year. He lives in Los Angeles. Porky,
Adding Up The Latino Fractions
Alice Salazar worries about the changes that newcomers are bringing to the Houston neighborhood her family has called home since the turn of the century when her grandparents immigrated from Mexico. “This place is full of fly-by-night people now,” she said speaking English
The Costly “Banks” That Welcome The Poor
Ask Jack Daugherty how many pawn shops he owns in the United States, and he has to put down the phone for a minute to check. “It’s kinda a moving target,” he apologizes. “I have to ask somebody every week.” The correct answer:
“Rent-to-Own”: The Slick Cousin of Paying on Time
Some people call Larry Sutton “The Reverend of Rent To-Own.” Sutton preaches the blessings of the rent-to-own business with the enthusiasm of a true believer. He owns a growing number of Champion Rent-to-own stores in Florida and Georgia: more than 20 so far.
How David Duke and the Born-Agains Wrecked Louisiana’s GOP
Louisiana has a spectacular history of corruption, most of it by Democrats. Disgust with that legacy animated Republican leaders, who took party organization as seriously as their rock ribbed conservatism. They had to. Outnumbered 3-to-1 by Democrats, Republicans held few offices until the
Chaos Unlimited: The Gap Between Theory and Practice in the New Hungary
Most of the workers at the Videoton television factory in Székesfehérvár, Hungary were under no illusions about the reliability of the Ukrainian market, the destination for 5,000 television sets that had rolled past their assembly line. It was nice to have the work,
Children of Rescue
BATON ROUGE-Brent Cadle, 16, drops onto all fours and looks up at his even younger audience. “First, we never walk; we crawl,” be says. The 40 children and a few parents sitting on the floor around him hug their knees and watch, rapt.
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
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
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
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
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
Vigilante Economics: How Wall Street Shattered Tokyo and London gave Frankfurt Woe
In September 1992, the vision of united European nations sharing something like a common currency was swept away like a mirage by international currency traders who forced Britain’s withdrawal from the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM). With the economy of Britain already in
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
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
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
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
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
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
Queer Rage
Guatemala’s Refugees
Pity is a Four-Letter Word
Help for Strangers in a Strange Land
The Devastating Power of Racial Belligerence
The New Enemy in Guatemala
Forcing the Young into Nursing Homes
Importing Girls to Integrate a Connecticut Public School
Faces of the Anguished Middle East
Intolerance on Campus
Gay Politics
“The Gift of the Indus”
Hard Rows: The Amazon after Chico Mendes
Clearing a Path from the Ghetto to Choate
The Palestinian Revolt: New Miseries in an Endless Feud
Cold War Resartus
Gypsy Liberation In Hungary
A Contra Rampage–With Blessings from the United States
“A Flood From Below”: The Downfall of Irrigation
Coca, Campesinos, and a Controversial General
The Alarming Increase in Alcohol-Damaged Children
The Contras Murdering Their Own: A Grisly Retribution
Death Traps
From the Cold War to the Drug War
Crime and Impunity in Chile: Perverting the Law of a Legalistic Land
Beating Alcohol Through Tribal Self-Help
David Halberstam: The Making of a Critic
Growing Up: Solidarity’s Turbulent Times
Rebellion Among The Rebels
Mirage
Chile’s Lost Generation
The Economic Chaos In Mexico: A Primer
A Dam on the Danube: The Greening of Hungarian Politics
The Dictator
The Stale, Small War in El Salvador
Land Of Dreamers: What Haitians Want
America’s Little War Becomes A Nightmare
The Opposition Struggles In Mexico
The Age Of Electronic Government
Death In Haiti
The Wary Chronicler Who Inspired A Rebellion
The Fragile Peace
Building America’s Stone Wall
Proposition 65: California’s Controversial Gift
Death By Drink: The Sad Battle of America’s Indians
How America Eagerly Built Her Arsenal
Paradise Lost: Haiti Without Trees
When The World Began Watching
The Massacre in Mexico – Twenty Years Later
“Alex: From Showdown to Showcase?”
Your Right To Know What You Breathe And Drink–A New Law Emerges
