From South Carolina to Washington, D.C., a chronicle of poetic lineage and family history.

On the other side of the world, James Seawel met a fellow American, Benjamin Adams, who told him stories of the Civil Rights Movement. Adams would never call himself a hero, but Seawel knows he was one.

The pianist James Reese Europe, born in Alabama in 1881, played “jazz” before the world even knew the word. Texas pianist Jason Moran is resurrecting his story.