Kira Davis, 46, is an editor-at-large for the website RedState and host of the podcast Just Listen to Yourself. She’s also a black conservative Christian who’s outspoken about her faith and history of facing racial discrimination. She lives in Orange County, Calif., with her husband: They have two children, ages 18 and 13. Here are edited excerpts of our July conversation. 

Dwight McKissic has wonderful memories of the Southern Baptist Convention as a black youngster. He watched black and white Baptists pray and worship together, saw black and white pastors swap pulpits. His older siblings were all active with SBC-funded student groups in college. When he interned with a prison chaplain, the SBC financially supported him.

Patti Aguirre would have driven right past her daughter if someone hadn’t cried out, “There’s Kelly!” Aguirre turned around, and there she was—her then-30-year-old daughter Kelly Alatorre, standing in a food line at Skid Row in Los Angeles. It was December 2015, and Aguirre had not seen her daughter for two years. For months she had driven downtown LA looking for her, peering into alleyways and parks. 

Chuck Bower and five other local pastors sat at a restaurant patio in King, N.C., to strategize. It was early June, and the pastors realized they needed to rethink church operations since the coronavirus pandemic looked to keep lingering. Yet none of them had ever dealt with such a public health crisis before. Two days later, one of the pastors texted the group: His whole family had tested positive that morning. “I apologize for showing up on Monday,” he wrote. “If I had had any signs, obviously I would have stayed away.” 

As Republicans and Democrats wrestled for control of the United States House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House on Nov. 3, voters across the country decided statewide issues that other states may eventually consider. Here’s a rundown of some of this election’s most important statewide ballot initiatives.

Thomas Wolf was in a pickle. His doctor no longer prescribed him the narcotic pain reliever oxycodone for his foot injury, but his supply had run out. Wolf didn’t think he could live without his pills anymore. So he searched on YouTube: “Where can I buy drugs in San Francisco?” YouTube directed him to Golden Gate Avenue and Leavenworth Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. 

A grand jury’s decision on Sept. 23 not to charge three officers with killing Breonna Taylor kicked over an already simmering cauldron of anger, grief, and frustration into the streets of Louisville, Ky. Protesters demanded that all three Louisville Metro Police Department officers who shot at Taylor in her apartment in March be charged with murder.