By Lacey Latch

Rick Bragg learned how to tell a story on dirt roads in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Born poor in rural Alabama to a hardworking mother and alcoholic father, Bragg began to develop the skills that would eventually separate his career from the rest, as he sat and listened to the Braggs that came before him.

“I grew up with the best storytellers on the planet,” Bragg said. “My uncles on both sides of my family could tell you a story and make you hear the footsteps of a deputy chasing through the dark, you know? They could make you hear the change rattling in their pocket. They just knew that you told a story with drama and detail and color.”

Influenced heavily by his family, the foundation of a well-told story was instilled in Bragg early on.

“Whenever they started to talk, I stopped what I was doing and listened,” he said. “So I didn’t know I wanted to be a journalist. It was just, that was the way that you got paid for telling a story.”

Eventually, Bragg’s career would lead him to tell stories around the globe, covering unrest in Haiti, the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombings and the 1998 Jonesboro, Arkansas school shooting among many other things — all the while infusing each story with the poetry that has become known for. Throughout the process, Bragg became a reporter who could add an extra human element to even the most basic hard news stories. Ultimately, what allowed him to do that was a natural ability to get people to share their experiences with him, helping him to collect a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing along the way.

“Over the years, I did a lot of bad news. I did a lot of storms; I did a coup or two, a lot of killing and dying,” he said. “… Getting people to tell you a story was always the secret.”

Now as an instructor at the University of Alabama, Bragg emphasizes the importance of powerful storytelling to young journalists. Storytelling, he says, is the only real way to get the attention of the everyday person.

Admittedly not an expert on topics like geopolitics at home or abroad, Bragg continues to see powerful storytelling as the greatest tool available to him to make a difference. That sentiment carries through to his current position as a columnist for Southern Living, where he published a powerful column in the days following the race-fueled riots in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2018.

“I think if you write about people that are suffering, vividly, you should not be ashamed of that or feel like they’re being exploited,” he said. “That’s the only way to get anyone to give a damn.”

For those on the outside looking in, it may seem as though Bragg succeeded in spite of the circumstances he was born into but Bragg himself sees it quite the opposite. In fact, decades removed from the nights he spent as a child listening intently to the words spoken before him, Bragg attributes all of his storytelling ability directly to his family and childhood.

“Every story I’ve ever told goes right back to the dirt,” Bragg said. “It doesn’t matter if it was in LA or New York or Miami or the Pakistan-Afghanistan border or in Haiti, they all go right back to the dirt and foothills of the Appalachians.”

 

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