Morning Edition heads out on a special summer road trip with "Dead Stop: Famous Final Resting Places of Americans Great and Small." The series takes listeners to strange, funny, historic or otherwise notable gravesites and cemeteries around the U.S., touching on American history, biography, art, religion and land use along the way. "Dead Stop" launches Monday, May 28, and runs occasionally throughout the summer.
This series also includes a listener callout: Help NPR's Morning Edition build a Google map of cool graveyards and tombstones -- post your favorite photos on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #NPRDeadStop and they'll be featured on an interactive Dead Stop map.
Dead Stop: Dorothy Parker
Morning Edition; week of June 4
The ashes of famous New Yorker writer Dorothy Parker were interred at the headquarters of the NAACP in Baltimore. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce explores how the iconic Manhattan wit came to spend eternity in Charm City.
Dead Stop: Bill Wilson, Founder of AA
Morning Edition; week of June 11
Bill Wilson, the man who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, is fittingly buried with a simple headstone that makes no mention of his work on behalf of addiction. Yet recovering alcoholics and others make their way to his grave outside East Dorset, VT to leave "tokens" marking their years of sobriety. Steve Zind of member station Vermont Public Radio reports.
Dead Stop: Muslim Cemetery of Flint, MI
Morning Edition; week of June 18
NPR's Sami Yenigun profiles Garden of Peace, the first Muslim cemetery in Flint, MI. It was organized in 2010 to comply with religious tenets, and allows the deceased to face towards Mecca.
Dead Stop: Stonewall Jackson's Arm
Morning Edition; week of June 18
NPR correspondent Ramona Martinez travels to the site of an unlikely Civil War memorial -- the tombstone of Stonewall Jackson's arm. The Confederate general lost his left arm in the battle of Chancellorsville, Va.; after doctors amputated it, an Army chaplain arranged to have it buried in his family's cemetery nearby. Jackson himself died a week later; his remains were returned to his family and buried separately.
And more stories to come!
