The State of Things

Did you know that Quakers were the first organized non-native religious group in the Carolinas? In the late 1600s, the governor and assembly of North Carolina were majority Quaker. Today, the Piedmont Triad has the largest concentration of Quakers in North America. But leading up to the Civil War, Quakers left the state in droves because of their opposition to slavery. During the war, their pacifism sent them north and west to free states. Greensboro’s Guilford College was first established as a boarding school in 1837 in order to maintain some Quaker presence in the state.

The 14th Amendment may be the most hotly debated 2,000 words in American history. It was adopted on July 9, 1868 and is considered the most important of the “Reconstruction Amendments.” Those amendments - the 13th, 14th and 15th - reconfigure the relationship between the states and the federal government. Among other things, they put the federal government in the position of monitoring the way states protect civil rights.

The Miss North Carolina beauty pageant begins this Tuesday. The winner of that will compete in the illustrious Miss America beauty pageant. Both contests are influential, doing much to perpetuate a certain image of female beauty. But is that image of beauty harmful?

Charlie Thompson wanted to learn more about his grandfather’s history in moonshine, so began investigating his hometown and the “Moonshine Capital of the World,” Franklin County, Virginia. What he found was a complicated picture of poverty and necessity juxtaposed with a hierarchy of power that was revealed during a famous conspiracy trial in 1935.