An All-American BuzzReads Reading List

Before you hit the road or the beach this weekend, take along these stories, which capture the people, culture, politics, and history of the U.S.A.

Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed

1. The Chef Who’s Leading The Backlash Against Mississippi’s New Anti-Gay Law by Wyatt Williams

Photograph by David Bertozzi for BuzzFeed

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, Mississippi is enacting a law that could sanction anti-LGBT discrimination. Can the state’s most prominent chef and cultural ambassador help keep his adoptive home from repeating its ugly past?

2. Joe Dorsey’s Big Fight: How An Unknown Boxer Knocked Out Segregation In Louisiana by Steve Knopper

Courtesy Johnson Publishing Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

In 1955, an African-American boxer in New Orleans named Joe Dorsey sued the state of Louisiana for the right to fight against white opponents. What started out as a chance to advance his career wound up changing sports and culture in the state forever.

3. Failure To Launch: How New Mexico Is Paying For Richard Branson’s Space Tourism Fantasy by Joshua Wheeler

John Gara / BuzzFeed

One of the poorest states in the nation has invested nearly a quarter of a billion dollars and 10 years in creating a hub for Richard Branson’s space tourism company, Virgin Galactic. Some see it as the crown jewel of a new space age while others call it a carnival for the 1 percent — but with persistent delays and mounting financial strain, Spaceport America is just trying to avoid becoming New Mexico’s costliest, most futuristic ghost town.

4. The Low-Budget, High-Pressure Life Of An MLS Rookie by David Peisner

Photograph by Emily Berl for BuzzFeed

Major League Soccer is the only pro sports league in America where superstars can earn 140 times more than their teammates. How much longer will it be able to convince talented, internationally coveted young players like the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Kofi Opare to stay in the U.S. for $35,000 a year?

5. Fighting For Hip-Hop In The Whitest City In America by Arianna Rebolini

Yousef Hatlani / facesontheradio.com

Portland, Ore., is known as a haven for progressive culture. So why does it seem like police consider rappers and their fans a threat to the city’s specific brand of weird?

6. Wildcatting: A Stripper’s Guide to the Modern American Boomtown by Susan Elizabeth Shepard

Susan Elizabeth Shepard

Nothing is more emblematic of the American dream than chaotic mining and drilling towns such as Williston, North Dakota, and the people who flock to them in search of fortune. And no one knows better how these communities work — and don’t — than the traveling topless dancer.

7. William Suess Thought He Was An American Until The Day He Was Deported by Mike Giglio

John Gara / BuzzFeed

Born in Germany but raised in Missouri, “Wild Bill” Suess served in the Army, then did time for various crimes. But he didn’t know what prison really was until strict immigration laws left him to fend for himself at a grim shelter in a foreign country he was now forced to call home.

8. Pastor Andrew Hamblin Would Rather Die Or Go To Jail Than Give Up Handling Snakes by Gemma de Choisy

Photograph by Shawn Poynter for BuzzFeed

As part of a traditional Appalachian sect, the 22-year-old church leader illegally handled venomous snakes — and starred on the reality TV show Snake Salvation — until wildlife authorities seized them all. Risking his life and his livelihood, he’s taking a stand in the name of Jesus, and, he argues, in the name of religious freedom.

9. How An Ohio Housewife Flew Around The World, Made History, And Was Then Forgotten by Amy Saunders

Sheldon Ross / The Columbus Dispatch, © Dispatch Printing Company / Via dispatch.com

Jerrie Mock was a 38-year-old housewife from Columbus, Ohio, when 50 years ago she accomplished what Amelia Earhart is famous for having failed to do. But, in the decades since, as Mock’s life began to unravel, history all but forgot the pilot who made it.

10. Why I Bought A House In Detroit For $500 by Drew Philp

Photograph by Mike Williams

After college, as his friends left Michigan for better opportunities, the 23-year-old author was determined to help fix a broken, chaotic city by building his own home in the middle of it.

11. The Eel World: Inside Maine’s Wild Elver Turf War by Peter Andrey Smith

Photograph by Jenny Calivas

In an economically depressed Maine county, Bill Sheldon is the kingpin of a $40 million baby-eel industry that may be doomed to extinction. Find out what happens when a community full of armed fishermen and elver dealers stop being polite and start getting real.

12. Takeru Kobayashi’s Declaration Of Independence by Emily Fleischaker

Macey J. Foronda

Last July, for the fourth year in a row, the Nathan’s 4th of July hot dog-eating contest was without its original superstar thanks to an ongoing, bilious contract dispute. It’s hard to prove you’re still the champ when you don’t have any opponents, and it’s hard to plan your future when your golden opportunity implodes in scandal.

13. 60 Words And A War Without End: The Untold Story Of The Most Dangerous Sentence In U.S. History by Gregory D. Johnsen

John Gara / BuzzFeed

Written in the frenzied, emotional days after 9/11, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force was intended to give President Bush the ability to retaliate against whoever orchestrated the attacks. But more than 12 years later, this sentence remains the primary legal justification for nearly every covert operation around the world. Here’s how it came to be, and what it’s since come to mean.

14. Gored In The U.S.A.: The Running Of The Bulls Comes To America by Wyatt Williams

Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed

Two enterprising ex-lawyers are risking their livelihoods to reinvent a centuries-old Spanish tradition for thrill-seeking weekend warriors. But what are the long-term prospects for a venture that relies on its customers getting trampled by large, angry animals?

15. Dispatches From The Front Line Of Florida’s Wild Python Hunt by Amanda Petrusich

Adam Setala

The monthlong Python Challenge in the Everglades is part controversial preservationist initiative, part sensationalistic media stunt, and all slinking through swamps trying to kill giant deadly reptiles.

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