W. Ralph Eubanks

Biography

W. Ralph Eubanks is the author of Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past (Basic Books), which Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley named as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003. He has contributed articles to the Washington Post Outlook and Style sections, the Chicago Tribune, Preservation, and National Public Radio. A graduate of the University of Mississippi (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A., English Language and Literature), he is a recipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and is also a fellow at the New America Foundation. Ralph lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and three children and is Director of Publishing at the Library of Congress.

Ralph has just completed a new book, The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South, which was released May 19, 2009, by the Harper imprint at HarperCollins.

Selected Works

Books
The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South
A look at race and identity through three generations of one American Family
Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past
A gripping memoir of coming of age in Mississippi in the Civil Rights era.
Reviews
Healing the Past
A Review of Abraham Verghese's "Cutting for Stone"
George Washington's Slaves
A review of Scott Casper's "Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon"
Fathers and Sons
A Review of Richard Wright's A Father's Law
Whiteness Falls
A review of Nathan McCall's "Them: A Novel
Mississippi Yearning
A Review of Doug Marlette's Magic Time
Articles
Affirmative Action and After
Now is the time to reconsider a policy that must eventually change. But simply replacing race with class isn’t the solution.
At Ole Miss, a Valedictory to the Old South
A look at the changing mind of the South
DNA is Only One Way to Spell Identity
A Look at the Meaning of Racial Labels
Before He Had His "Dream," King Wrote a Letter
A look at the significance of Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail
I Know What He Means
An analysis of the comments made by Trent Lott at Strom Thurmond’s Birthday Party in 2002.
Essays
Still Learning From Dad
A Son Relishes Counsel That Comes in Dreams
Separate But Unequal
Has Capitol Hill, barricaded and fenced off, lost its small-town appeal?
A Trip Back Home for a Lesson in Justice
A summer trip to Mississippi provides the author and his children a look at Freedom Summer 1964
Are We Putting Reading and Democracy at Risk?
Fewer of us are reading, and our leaders may have scared even more people away from the pastime.
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