For more than a year, Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster has been researching and reporting a story about the historic freedman’s town of Joppa, southeast of downtown. For generations, Dallas has neglected this community built by emancipated slaves, and now it is facing thoroughly modern challenges.
Joppa’s story is the history of race in Dallas — and America. Lamster’s partner in the project was News visual journalist Lynda M. González. In “Reckoning with Joppa,” Lamster and González explore the people, problems and promise of this unique community.
Read the story and see photographs online: “Reckoning with Joppa”
This special audio report was produced by Christopher Wynn, Marcia L. Allert and Christian Vasquez.
Hear more from The Dallas Morning News
To listen to this report on your mobile device and hear a daily summary of our top stories, search for “The Dallas Morning News” on any podcast platform. (The largest is Apple Podcasts, so here’s a quick link to our feed there. And here’s a link to our feed in Spotify.)
While special audio reports such as “Reckoning with Joppa” are not yet available as part of our flash briefings for smart speakers (sorry, Alexa), we will include announcements in our briefings each time we have a new report available. Here are instructions for how to sign up for the briefings.
Finally, if you’re not already a subscriber to The Dallas Morning News, please become one to help support our journalism and new initiatives like this one. Our listeners will find a special offer at dallasnews.com/audio.
