STORIES we

BELIEVE in

We are Helen and Gary Schwab, longtime Charlotte journalists now working to tell stories we think can create change, help reckon with history that hasn’t been told — or told fully — and hold up a mirror to what we have yet to face.

We write, edit, research, consult, coach, volunteer, mentor, encourage.

Since retiring after 35+-year careers as editors and writers at The Charlotte Observer, we’ve:

  • worked on a documentary inspired by stories Gary wrote — now streaming nationally on PBS — and on a short film Helen helped produce;

  • built content for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Remembrance Project, a collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative to help America face our history of racial terror; and

  • continued to support both beginning and seasoned storytellers making a difference with their own stories.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Remembrance Project tells truth about racial terror lynchings
Lynching of Willie McDaniel in Charlotte Post
What we do

  • "(Mr. McDaniel's story) read more like a novel."

    GWENDOLYN GLENN, WFAE Charlotte

  • "In 2014, the Observer’s Gary Schwab published one of the more memorable pieces of local journalism in the past decade. It’s the story of how Jimmie Lee reconnected with Myers Park classmate De Kirkpatrick, a white man."

    MICHAEL GRAFF in Axios Charlotte

  • "By writing with patience, compassion, and acuity about the most delicate of relationships, (Gary) Schwab opened minds and began conversations about being Southern and being human."

    GLENDA GILMORE, history professor at Yale