In early December 2018, I was walking around Elizabethtown, N.C. working on a story for POLITICO on the strange election fraud scandal in the 9th Congressional District race. Just before…
A goodbye to Uncle Johnny
Was asked to write an obituary for my uncle Johnny. He was my dad’s brother and best bud, but he was everybody’s best bud. In the photo, he’s in the…
On the Proud Boys and North Carolina history
In the debate, the president told a white supremacist group to stand by, then told supporters to watch the polls. It reminded me of some things I’d found while researching…
Justin Carr was killed while protesting for Black lives. Now his son, who wasn’t yet born that night, is almost 4.
The night I saw his father die, Justin Carr Jr. was still in the womb. It was September 21, 2016, and I was covering a protest in uptown when a…
A message of hope, from me and Julius Peppers
180 words. That’s all I wrote for the Panthers in this “Message of Hope for the Carolinas.” They added video footage. They added sound. And Julius Peppers read them. Now….
These were the first few weeks of your life, baby George
Our son was born March 6. The world shut down the next week. In a new essay, I tried to write about all that.
2019, and some things I wrote
For Charlotte Agenda, a story on one man’s drive to save the youth in his neighborhood, starting with a boy named Haji. And a sad follow-up in November. And the…
Yes, I joined Charlotte Agenda. Here are a few things I’ve done so far.
Hard to believe, but I’m seven weeks into a job at Charlotte Agenda already. Days and weeks move faster when you’re on staff somewhere. But I’m enjoying it. I mean,…
Our First Father’s Day without Dad
The pelicans—excuse me, the goddamn pelicans—are back. They skipped town for the hurricane last fall like everybody else, and weren’t to be seen during a 99-degree Memorial Day weekend, but…
A Few Words on the UNC Charlotte Shooting
When Charlotte College moved to a nearly 300-acre stretch of farmland in north Charlotte in 1961, construction crews finished the first two buildings ahead of schedule. It was August, and…