Esquire has been awarded its first Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for Mark Warren's piece on Bubba Copeland, a beloved Baptist pastor whose suicide was linked to private online activities being exposed by a news site. The article provides a poignant look at Copeland's life and the community's complex reactions, addressing larger issues like gender norms, social media impacts, and the cultural divide in America. Warren's sensitive interviews with people who knew Copeland create a rich narrative that highlights the emotional and societal loss from the tragedy, marking an important moment for the magazine.
This extraordinary, deeply moving account tells the remarkable story of a beloved Baptist pastor and mayor in a small town in Alabama, Bubba Copeland, who took his own life after a right-wing news website exposed private online activities he'd engaged in that involved transgender role play.
Warren interviewed scores of Copeland's friends, family, townspeople, and fellow congregants in order to render a heartbreaking account of the man's final days, and to portray the full scope of the visceral, grief-stricken, perhaps counterintuitive response of a small southern town in all its rich complexity.
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