With Good Reason

Jazz Archive at Duke University / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA Sister Rosetta Tharpe attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings that were a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock and roll. She became the first superstar of gospel music and was an early influence on Elvis Presley, Jerry [...]

Access to health care is still a major challenge for many Americans, even with the recent government overhaul.  In Appalachia, access can be even more limited.  With the nearest  health specialists sometimes hundreds of miles away, many people rely on free clinics for their medical, dental, and vision needs.  Thousands travel to Wise, Virginia each year for a weekend of teeth [...]

Over the past decade, Mexican drug traffickers trying to get their products to the U.S. have had a spiritual “protector.” Her name is Santa Muerte, and she’s a Mexican folk saint for not just drug traffickers, but prostitutes too. R. Andrew Chesnut (Virginia Commonwealth University) is the author of a new book about Santa Muerte, [...]

Nine teams of step dancers from black Greek organizations wowed spectators recently at what has become the largest folk festival in the nation.  Dance historian Benita Brown (Virginia State University) says stepping routines at the sororities and fraternities are part of a tradition that goes back to African tribal rituals.  Folklorist Jon Lohman (Virginia Foundation [...]

Halloween is just around the corner.  Haunted houses, graveyards, and ghost walks – paranormal tourism is more popular than ever.  Teresa O’Bannon (Radford University) is an expert on what she calls “dark side tourism.”  Then, With Good Reason will also do a little ghost-busting of its own. Also featured: The Shenandoah Valley is prehistoric home of mastodons and giant sloths, [...]

John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 in Ford’s Theater in Washington.  But Booth had been part of a long standing conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.  Terry Alford (Northern Virginia Community College), an expert on Booth, investigates who were these conspirators, their motives at the end of the war and whether [...]

Halloween is just around the corner.  Haunted houses, graveyards, and ghost walks – paranormal tourism is more popular than ever.  Teresa O’Bannon (Radford University) is an expert on what she calls “dark side tourism.”  Then, With Good Reason will also do a little ghost-busting of its own.  Also featured: The Shenandoah Valley is prehistoric home [...]

Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jewish American to reach that rank in the United States Navy, is an unsung hero of American history.  According to Melvin Urofsky (Virginia Commonwealth University), not only was Levy instrumental in the Navy, he also rescued Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson estate, from ruin.  Also featured: David Metzger (Old Dominion [...]

Colonial Williamsburg, Monticello, and Mt. Vernon are popular destinations for American history tourism.  However, smaller sites are being developed with the help of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities that focus on the contributions of African Americans to early U.S. history.  Larissa Smith Fergeson (Longwood University) discusses the Thyne Institute in Mecklenburg County, Carver-Price High [...]

Access to health care is still a major challenge for many Americans, even with the recent government overhaul.  In Appalachia, access can be even more limited.  With the nearest  health specialists sometimes hundreds of miles away, many people rely on free clinics for their medical, dental, and vision needs.  Thousands travel to Wise, Virginia each year for a weekend of teeth [...]