We just talked live with the journalist and author John Jeremiah Sullivan about what it means to try to tell the truth today — and we dug into some of America’s hard truths.
At the heart of the kind of narrative nonfiction writing Sullivan does is the goal of understanding people with whom you may have profound disagreements. We talked about that practice of understanding, and how it grows harder in a time that demands moral clarity and impassioned advocacy.
We talked about the work he’s doing with the Third Person Project to understand the white supremacist massacre that overthrew the biracial government in his adopted hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898 — and why he believes too many white Americans have been led to believe racial progress means Black vengeance.
And we talked about how democracy and pluralism and individual freedoms aren’t just elements of a political order, but qualities of the soul that a good society fosters.
You won’t want to miss any of it. Just click on the video player above to watch the entire conversation.
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