When 14-year-old Josh Burford first heard about a local park where gay men supposedly went to cruise, he was curious if it could be true. It was the early 1990s in Anniston, Alabama, a small town halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta. When he got the courage to visit, he ended up chatting with the men there and thinking: “Holy shit, this is a group of Queer...
Before my incarceration at age 19 in 1997, my formal experience with technology ended with Windows 2.0 as a high school freshman. I played Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo video games, or paid quarters for tokens at an arcade. I saw dial-up internet exactly once, when my girlfriend logged into a chat room to find out when to purchase some concert tickets...
This story was originally published by The Assembly, in solidarity with Abolition Week: The Bars We Can’t See. It was lunchtime at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York, and the cafeteria was teeming with men chattering as they ate. Craig Waleed was there too, but the 21-year-old inmate wasn’t eating. September 9, 1990, was the 19th...
A single mother in North Africa wanted nothing to do with Christians, but when unclean spirits began haunting her daughter, she was compelled to bring her to a service for healing prayer. Known for being contentious and unruly, Ruba* often neglected her seven children and had left the now-haunted daughter in the care of a relative who practiced witchcraft, the leader...