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What disasters reveal about disparities


Welcome to The American South!

If you're new here, thank you for subscribing and becoming a part of our community where we focus on producing revelatory journalism about the South.

Please excuse our unannounced hiatus from the newsletter. Hurricane Ida came rushing in as a Category 4 with New Orleans in its crosshairs, the city where most of our team is based. I would like to start by acknowledging the incredible journalists who worked through Hurricane coverage last week. We are all safe and I'm grateful. During that time, we wrote stories on several important subjects. You can read more below. 

In other news, we are still following the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed, including its devastating impact on long-haulers— patients experiencing debilitating symptoms of coronavirus several weeks or months after contracting it. For millions, COVID-19 just won't quit.

Finally, we talk a lot about gators down South. But this gator is more than a showpiece, it's now a part of history after it was found housing 6000 BC artifacts in its belly. 

Thank you for reading. Take good care!

Ashley Hopkinson (Editor, The American South)

Hurricane Ida aftermath 

Why recovery from long COVID is a complex challenge for patients in the South

For Johnson, her nightmare health crisis started on Fat Tuesday.

She got sick early in the pandemic after celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The city was an early hotspot for the virus in the South last year.

Looking back she says, “It was the best time….and ultimately the worst time."

In October, she got sick again. This time, the symptoms came with gripping pain, and aching in her joints so intense she’d wake up screaming.

“I couldn’t speak a full sentence without feeling like I’d run a mile,” she said.

Mississippi is among six states across the U.S. that have not opened a post-COVID care program to assist long-haulers like Johnson. But even in states like Louisiana and Alabama where clinics have opened, care is often hard to access. 

Read the full story here

How did artifacts, thousands of years old, turn up in a Mississippi alligator's stomach?

Shane Smith, owner of Red Antler Processing in Yazoo City, said he was examining contents of a 13-foot, 5-inch alligator that weighed 750 pounds and discovered two unusual objects. One he couldn't identify, but the other was clearly a broken stone arrowhead.

The find was so unexpected, he almost didn't let the news out.

"It was just disbelief," Smith said.

So, how did these ancient objects get into the alligator's belly? 

Read the full story here