Overflowing with pride

Dear friends,

Monday was the last day of the semester and I already miss my students.

For me, teaching is procreative. I have no retirement plans, but right now the most urgent part of my work is nurturing young journalists and storytellers with the skills, curiosity, and compassion needed to elevate unheard voices, tell important stories, and hold the powerful accountable.

The last few months have brought me reassurance that the next generation is on the right track. In today’s newsletter, I want to share some recent work produced by my former students. They make me overflow with pride.

• Margaux “Max” Tendler wrote a three-part series for WUNC about the abuse suffered by Black transgender women in North Carolina’s prison system and the challenges they face reentering society. You can find Part 1 here and the other parts here.

• Natalie Alms, along with her colleague Eric Katz, reviewed 23 hours of legal depositions—before a New York judge ordered the videos offline—to chronicle the chaos sown by DOGE, its zealous pressure campaign against federal workers, and its evisceration of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They published their article in Government Executive.

•  Camara Aaron produced “Deep Care,” a podcast series that follows three Black community midwives who are making joyful, empowering, and safe birth possible. It reframes the national conversation about Black maternal outcomes from crisis to possibility.

• Jothi Gupta looked at a decades-long effort, led by Duke University scientists, to develop an AIDS vaccine—and what happened when the Trump administration pulled the funding plug. This article was written for my class and published by The Assembly.

• Will Zimmerman, a staff writer for the New York Post, spent time with six young tech entrepreneurs who use a Manhattan gym as their office. The self-described “Media Mafia” all run companies generating at least seven figures per year, and their workday is sandwiched between kettlebell workouts and cold plunges. Will tells the story in text and video. 

• Andrew Long, writing in The Assembly, recounted the last lecture of Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar who wanted his students to think seriously about what it means to believe. Ehrman was a former evangelical who rarely discussed his own atheism, and his Chapel Hill lecture drew attendees from as far as Mexico and Argentina.

Plus: an update on my latest story

My stories rarely spark immediate tangible reforms. So it was gratifying when our investigation of the dollar-store industry, published by The Guardian, led the Utah legislature to pass a new law cracking down on chronic overchargers. Here’s my article about the Utah law: 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/16/dollar-stores-overcharge-customers-utah-law-penalty 

I’m grateful for my teammates Jocelyn Zuckerman and Michael Hudson.

An update on a musical legend

A friend recently asked me to name my favorite project ever. I didn't hesitate. "The Gutbucket King," I said: my 2013 longform profile of the New Orleans blues guitarist Little Freddie King.

In the 1950s, as a teenager, King jumped on a moving freight train heading south from Macomb, Mississippi. Over the decades that followed, he built a worldwide reputation for his gritty country blues. He outlasted most of his generation. But he also suffered crushing hardships along the way, including shootings, stabbings, addiction, his wife’s death, and an apocalyptic storm.

Hurricane Katrina displaced King for two years, until he returned home to a rental apartment in Habitat for Humanity's Musicians' Village. That was supposed to be the happy ending. But Habitat then sold the property to a private developer who tripled King's rent. It's more than he can afford on his Social Security income—because of a bicycle accident, he now gets around in a wheelchair and rarely performs. (He did, however, sing at Jazz Fest last week.)

The Housing Authority of New Orleans and Music Maker Foundation have bought King some time. But his long-term housing situation remains in limbo. Drew Hawkins wrote about King's situation, and about how New Orleans does and does not support its culture bearers. His article can be found in Antigravity Magazine.

Meanwhile, the Krewe of Red Beans has started a fundraiser for King. Donate here.

And some personal news

Monday was also my last day at Wake Forest University; after seven years, the 170-mile round-trip commute was wearing thin. I’m proud of what my colleagues and I accomplished over that time—chief among them teaching every Wake Forest journalism student how to develop cultural-competency skills and sensitively cover communities different from their own.

I’m not done with the classroom, though. I’ll continue teaching at Duke University.

See you soon! 

All best,
Barry Yeoman