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Tanya Ballard Brown

Credit Kainaz Amaria / NPR

Tanya Ballard Brown is a Southern girl, an editor for NPR.org and a wild dreamer who laughs loudly and often.

As an editor for NPR.org, Tanya collaborates with editors and reporters from the national desk to create compelling Web content that complements radio reports; brainstorms and develops Web-only features; manages online producers, Kroc Fellows and interns; and, line edits stories appearing on the website. Projects she has worked on include the "Dirty Money" series, winner of a Sigma Delta Chi Award for Investigative Reporting, a Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and an Edward R. Murrow award; the "Friday Night Lives" series, winner of an Edward R. Murrow Award; and, "WASP: Women With Wings In WWII," winner of a GRACIE Award.

Tanya is former editor for investigative and long-term projects at washingtonpost.com and during her tenure there coordinated with the print and online newsrooms to develop multimedia content for investigative reports, including the creation of "Washington Post Investigations," the first definitive home for the Post's award-winning investigative journalism on washingtonpost.com.

Tanya also led production of the 2006 "Being a Black Man" series, which won numerous awards including the Peabody, Scripps Howard National Journalism award, Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism and a regional Emmy award. Other Web projects included "Silent Injustice" and "Walter Reed and Beyond."

A native of Charlotte, N.C., and an alumna of N.C. A&T State University, Tanya is a former congressional fellow with the American Political Science Association. She has been a reporter or editor at GovExec.com/Government Executive magazine, The Tennessean in Nashville and the (Greensboro) News & Record.

In her free time, Tanya sings show tunes and dreams of being a bass player. Or Sarah Vaughan. Whichever comes first. She lives in Washington, D.C.

The Two-Way
3:23 pm
Tue December 18, 2012

Our Pancakes Are Saved! Charges Filed In Canadian Maple Syrup Heist

Credit iStockphoto.com
Fresh maple syrup in two maple leaf-shaped bottles, with other bottles behind. Police officials have arrested three men who allegedly siphoned the sweet treat from 16,000 storage barrels stored in a Quebec warehouse.
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Originally published on Wed December 19, 2012 3:51 am

After months on their sticky trail, Canadian police have finally fingered the people allegedly involved in the great Canadian maple syrup caper Bill Chappell told us about in August.

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The Picture Show
10:35 am
Mon December 10, 2012

A Black And White 1860s Fundraiser

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Credit Charles Paxson / Library of Congress
Rosa, Charley and Rebecca are three of eight freed slaves who sat for portraits in 1863-1864 that were sold to raise money to fund schools for emancipated slaves in Louisiana. The three were chosen because it was believed their near-white complexions would draw more sympathy — and support — from a country torn apart by slavery and civil war.
Credit Charles Paxson / Library of Congress
Credit Charles Paxson / Library of Congress
Credit Charles Paxson / Library of Congress
Credit Charles Paxson / Library of Congress
Credit Charles Paxson / Library of Congress
Credit Charles Paxson / Library of Congress
Credit Library of Congress
Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence, a freed slave, was adopted by Catherine S. Lawrence. Abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher presented Fannie to his congregation at Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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Originally published on Mon December 10, 2012 2:05 pm

They look like any other 19th century vignettes and portraits of children kneeling in prayer or cloaked in the U.S. flag.

But these cartes de visite (a calling card with a portrait mounted on it that was all the rage during the 1860s) featured Charles, Rebecca and Rosa — former slave children who looked white.

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The Two-Way
11:10 am
Wed November 21, 2012

How Did Thanksgiving End Up On Thursday?

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Credit National Archives
Snippet of a letter F.B. Haviland sent to President Hoover in 1929 asking him to move Thanksgiving to Friday.
Credit Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum
A snippet of a 1933 letter from the Downtown Association of Los Angeles asking President Roosevelt to push back Thanksgiving by a week.
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Originally published on Wed November 21, 2012 2:30 pm

Move Thanksgiving to Friday? That's what F.B. Haviland asked President Hoover in 1929.

Didn't happen. But while we're on the subject, ever wonder why we carve our gobblers on the fourth Thursday of November? Hint: It's not because Thanksgiving Thursday is more alliterative than Thanksgiving Friday.

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The Picture Show
7:11 am
Fri October 12, 2012

'Vintage Black Glamour' Exposes Little-Known Cultural History

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Credit Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images
That's Bananas: "Whether [Josephine Baker's] getting a pedicure or she's walking down the street or she's relaxing in a yard somewhere, I just love the variety of pictures of her," Gainer says. "The banana skirt is a part of who she was, it's the most famous thing, but it just annoys me when that's just the only thing. ... There was a lot more to her than that."
Credit Robert Scurlock / The Smithsonian Institution
Actress Fredi Washington circa 1940s. Washington played Peola in the 1934 Academy Award-nominated Imitation of Life.
Credit The Schomburg Center
Langston Hughes, Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Rudolph Fisher and Hubert Delany (brother of the Delany Sisters) overlooking St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem in the 1920s.
Credit William Gottlieb / Library of Congress
Duke Ellington, amid "his 20 suits, 15 shirts, suede shoes and his ever present piano" in his dressing room at the Paramount Theater in New York in September 1946.
Credit Robert Scurlock / The Smithsonian Institution
Argentine dancer instructing a group of young women behind her in a dance at Howard University in February 1963.
Credit Scurlock Studios / The Smithsonian Institution
Camille Nickerson was noted for her research on the music and culture of Louisiana Creoles. She earned a B.A. and an M.A. from Oberlin College and also studied at Juilliard and Columbia University. Nickerson collected, arranged and published Creole folk songs and, during the 1930s to 1950s, lectured and performed as "The Louisiana Lady."
Credit William Lovelace / Getty Images
Lena Horne, the sultry American singer who appeared in several musicals in the '40s and was a regular of the Cotton Club, trying on a dress May 4, 1956.
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Originally published on Fri October 12, 2012 2:03 pm

I was scrolling through my Tumblr feed a year or so ago, when I saw a photo of Joyce Bryant. The caption said she was once dubbed the "black Marilyn Monroe" and was mentioned many times in Walter Winchell's gossip column.

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The Two-Way
10:20 am
Fri October 5, 2012

Record High Prices At The Gas Pump Likely To Linger In California

Credit Damian Dovarganes / AP
Motorcyclists Hanna Gilan, right, and her son Chaim Gilan fill up their Vespa scooters with less than two gallons at a gas station in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles on Oct. 4, 2012.
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Originally published on Fri October 5, 2012 8:07 pm

Gas prices spiked overnight Thursday by as much as 20 cents per gallon in parts of California, causing some stations to close and shocking many customers.

According to The Associated Press, the average price of regular gas across the state was nearly $4.49 a gallon. In other parts of the country, gas prices have fallen. South Carolina has the lowest average gas prices in the continental U.S. at $3.49 a gallon.

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