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Radio Diaries: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
First-person diaries, sound portraits, and hidden chapters of history from Peabody Award-winning producer Joe Richman and the Radio Diaries team. From teenagers to octogenarians, prisoners to prison guards, bra saleswomen to lighthouse keepers. The extraordinary stories of ordinary life. Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX. Learn more at radiotopia.fm
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- Yesterday16 min
30 Years of Teenage Diaries
This year marks 30 years since we first worked with teenagers to record stories about their lives. Over the years, people have often asked us, whatever happened to them? What happened to Juan, Amanda, Melissa, Frankie, and Josh?We’re going to find out.In honor of three decades, we’re setting out to make a new series with our original teenage diarists. And we’re turning to you, our listeners, for help. If you donate now you’ll get an exclusive look behind the scenes as we make these stories. And for the next two weeks we have a generous match, so every dollar you contribute will be doubled: www.radiodiaries.org/donate This week on the show, we’re revisiting Juan’s teenage diary, and have a sneak peek of Joe’s recent trip to see him in Colorado. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- 2 weeks ago21 min
The Almost Astronaut
When it comes to the space race, we all know names like Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin. But in most moments in history, there are a few names that fall through the cracks. One of those names is Ed Dwight.When Ed Dwight was selected to train to become an astronaut, many thought he would become the first Black man to go to space. But Ed faced some unexpected hurdles. Today on the show, we bring you his story. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- 4 weeks ago27 min
Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair
This episode includes topics and archival audio that some people will find disturbing.Seventy-five years ago, on the night of May 7th, 1951, close to a thousand people gathered around the courthouse in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi. They came to witness an execution. Willie McGee was a young Black man who had been accused of raping a white woman and sentenced to death.Six decades later, Bridgette McGee teamed up with Radio Diaries to find the truth about what happened to her grandfather. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Apr 23, 202620 min
Sealab: A Home on the Ocean Floor
From ancient myths of sea monsters lurking below to Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the ocean has long been both a source of fear and fascination. For Captain George Bond, a Navy medical officer in the 1960s, the deep sea was humanity's next frontier. Undersea agriculture, deep sea mining, and human colonies on the ocean floor made up his dream for the future. Today we bring you the story of the U.S. Navy's little-known experiment building homes on the ocean floor. They called it, Sealab. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Apr 2, 202638 min
Guest Spotlight: William Parker's War on Slave Catchers
This week we're bringing you a story from our friends at History This Week, a podcast from the History Channel.April 3, 1951. A man who escaped slavery is grabbed off the streets of Boston and thrown into a carriage. He fights back, shouting to the crowd, but it doesn’t matter. Under a new federal law, even the North isn’t safe.The Fugitive Slave Act has turned cities like Boston into hunting grounds. Freedom seekers are being captured, and ordinary citizens are being forced to help.But across the North, resistance is growing. In Pennsylvania, a man named William Parker is building a network to fight back. When slave catchers come to his door, that resistance explodes into violence.How did one law push the country dramatically closer to war? And what happens when the people targeted by this law refuse to surrender? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Mar 27, 202616 min
Detained: A Homecoming
Last week, Leqaa Kordia, young Palestinian woman from Paterson, New Jersey, walked out of an ICE detention center in Texas. Kordia had been held for more than a year. Radio Diaries has been following her story and recorded Kordia while detention. Now, we bring you her first interview since her release. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Mar 19, 202612 min
The Real Refugees of Casablanca
When the Hollywood classic, Casablanca, was released in 1943, moviegoers were thrilled by the love story. Humphrey Bogart stars as the cynical owner of Rick’s Cafe, a nightclub in Morocco. Ingrid Bergman is his old flame, Ilsa, now married to Victor Laszlo, a dashing resistance leader hunted by the Nazis.Many of the characters at Rick's Café are European refugees trying to make their way to America. What most viewers didn't know is that those characters were played by actors who themselves had recently fled the Nazis. This casting choice lent the film an authenticity that helped deliver its message: that a war far from our borders was a war worth waging. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Feb 26, 202618 min
Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier 3: The Trial
This is the final episode of our series about Isaac Woodard, a Black soldier who was beaten and blinded by a white police officer in 1946. In the last episode, radio host Orson Welles, who was investigating the case, learned the officer's identity.Isaac Woodard himself told a reporter, "Nothing they can do to the police officer will give me my eyes back, but if they punish him good and legal it may keep the same thing from happening to some more of our boys coming back home. I want him punished."But demanding accountability and getting it were two different things—especially in the Jim Crow South. This week, the officer goes to trial, and the President of the United States takes notice. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
About Radio Diaries
First-person diaries, sound portraits, and hidden chapters of history from Peabody Award-winning producer Joe Richman and the Radio Diaries team. From teenagers to octogenarians, prisoners to prison guards, bra saleswomen to lighthouse keepers. The extraordinary stories of ordinary life. Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX. Learn more at radiotopia.fm
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