Suskind won a 1995 Pulitzer for feature writing for this story and its sequel. He later published a book: “A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League.” His story’s protagonist, Cedric, is … Read more
LeDuff got a job on the cutting floor at a North Carolina slaughterhouse, where the work burns your muscles and dulls your mind. He hacked meat off of bone and watched blacks compete with Mexicans to survive under the watch … Read more
Ojito profiles two men, one black and one white, who have fled Cuba and live in Miami. In Cuba they were close friends; in America they have grown distant from and mistrustful of each other. They have been subsumed by … Read more
This is a fascinating account of an integrated Fundamentalist southern church and its courageous struggles with race. Through his focus on two church couples, one white and one black, Sack deciphers the congregation’s complex mix of attitudes and history, their … Read more
This is the tale of a black park ranger and a white landowner, the descendant of slaveowners, in Louisiana. It’s a story about the unearthing of grievances, about perception, truth and how history is recounted. The piece is a narrative, … Read more
Gurnett’s attitude in this piece is curious, compassionate, never melodramatic. Gurnett achieves "narrative distance," a detachment from her subject, even as she seeks to understand him. Her writing has more voice than we often find in smaller papers: She uses … Read more
The eighth installment in The New York Times race series may be the least narrative, in the sense that it is more an organized, persuasive collection of reporting—quotes, background, information—than a story that moves through time. But like good narrative, … Read more
Shane links infant mortality in Nepal to the U.S.’s own history. He takes a muscular approach to the topic by pointing out the paradox inherent in public health: treating people as statistics in order to save lives. We welcome this … Read more
