Join Clay at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest Home and Help Kick Off LTA’s 2025 Lewis and Clark Adventure
Tuesday, April 15 2025
Clay will lecture at 2:00 p.m., May 6, 2025 on Thomas Jefferson’s vision for Lewis and Clark’s “Corps of Discovery.”
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Reflections on America and the Open Road
Tuesday, April 15 2025
In a few weeks, Clay will embark on an 11,000-mile trek following the Lewis and Clark trail across the continent and back. As he loads his pickup and prepares to hit the road, Clay ponders what he has learned so far in his multi-year project to Listen to America.
- Published in Features
My New American Friend From Ghana
Monday, April 07 2025
On a recent Uber drive to the Bismarck airport, Clay met Isaac, a North Dakota emigre from Ghana and a proud, brand-new U.S. citizen.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
LTA Exclusive: Historic Portraits of Native American Activist Leonard Peltier
Saturday, March 29 2025
Earlier this year, President Biden commuted the prison sentence of Leonard Peltier. This week, noted “wet plate” photographer Shane Balkowitsch visited Peltier at Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota, where he took a series of historical portraits of the 80-year-old Native American activist. Balkowitsch’s portraits of Peliter are published here for the first time.
- Published in Features
The Enduring Appeal of Louis L’Amour and American Western Fiction
Tuesday, March 25 2025
Louis L’Amour is widely considered the best-selling author of Western fiction of all time. Still highly popular with readers around the globe, L’Amour has sold over 320 million books, with numerous film and TV adaptations of his work.
- Published in Features
Visions of John Wesley Powell and the Great Canyons of the Southwest
Monday, March 17 2025
John Wesley Powell, the extraordinary one-armed Civil War veteran, was the first to explore the canyons of the Colorado Plateau by river. His remarkable story still fascinates and inspires me.
- Published in Features
A Modest Proposal for U.S.-Cuban Relations
Monday, March 10 2025
Returning from leading a cultural tour of Cuba, the second in four years, Clay offers a new approach to U.S./Cuban relations.
- Published in Features
Fidel Castro’s Boyhood Home in Biran, Cuba
Sunday, March 02 2025
Fidel Castro’s birthplace, now a museum, is one of the initial stops for Clay and his companions as he leads a cultural tour of Cuba.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Visit to Little Havana’s Bay of Pigs Museum
Friday, February 28 2025
Before setting off for Cuba this week on a cultural tour of the island nation, Clay and his guests stopped in at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Little Havana, Miami.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. Annexation of Cuba (And More)
Tuesday, February 25 2025
The United States has a long, tortured relationship with Cuba, including Thomas Jefferson’s imperial designs on the island. As Clay travels to Cuba this week to lead a cultural tour, he reflects on a bit of forgotten history between the U.S. and the island nation 90 miles from Key West, Florida.
- Published in Features