Radio Diaries
204 episodes - English - Latest episode: 10 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1.2K ratingsFirst-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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Episodes
Radio Diaries Turns 20!
April 08, 2016 00:23 - 21 minutes - 17.6 MB20 years ago, NPR’s All Things Considered began running our occasional series, Teenage Diaries… which then grew up to become Radio Diaries. Today on the podcast, we check in with our very first diarist, Amanda Brand.
The Man in the Zoo
March 25, 2016 21:09 - 12 minutes - 14.3 MBIn 1906, New York’s Bronx Zoo was the largest zoo in the world. That year, the zoo introduced a new exhibit that would quickly became its most popular attraction. In the monkey house, right next to an orangutan, there was a man…inside a cage.
Claudette Colvin: “A Teenage Rosa Parks”
March 02, 2016 18:35 - 11 minutes - 12.8 MBNine months before Rosa Parks, a 15-year-old girl refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, AL.
Identical Strangers
February 18, 2016 17:20 - 17 minutes - 10.4 MBPaula Bernstein and Elyse Schein were both born in New York City and adopted as infants. When they were 35 years old, they met and found they were “identical strangers.”
Frankie’s Second Chance (Updated)
February 05, 2016 19:01 - 30 minutes - 41.2 MBAs a teenager, Frankie was a high school football star whose picture was in his hometown newspaper every week. Years after graduating, Frankie was back in the paper—as a criminal. In his new audio diary, Frankie is hoping for a second chance.
Friday Night Lights
January 22, 2016 21:03 - 18 minutes - 22.4 MB“In the seventh grade, I was real little, probably weighed 75 pounds. Everybody used to pick on me all the time. They picked on me and beat the crap out of me everyday…Then one day, my ninth grade year, I decided to play football. Now, at school, I can’t go out in the hall without somebody touching me and saying, ‘Hey Frankie, good luck tonight.’ I mean it’s just crazy. I can’t believe everybody likes me as much as they do. It’s like the old me is dead and then I was born again or s...
The Ski Troops of WWII
January 07, 2016 07:00 - 24 minutes - 29.9 MBThe 10th Mountain Division fought in World War II for only four months, but it had one of the highest casualty rates of the war. The division started out as an experiment to train skiers and climbers to fight in the mountains. The men of the 10th went on to lead a series of daring assaults against the German army in the mountains of Italy.
From Prison to President
December 24, 2015 18:59 - 20 minutes - 27.2 MBFour years after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, he became president of South Africa. And yet, those 4 years were among the bloodiest and most painful for all South Africans – black and white – as they struggled toward the transition to majority rule. On the Radio Diaries Podcast we’ve been revisiting chapters from our documentary series, Mandela: An Audio History. In this episode, we bring you “From Prison to President.” Plus, a bonus chapter about what might have been the...
The Last Place
December 03, 2015 17:57 - 30 minutes - 38.6 MBWhen you spend so much of your life getting to the next stage, thinking about the next move, what is it like to find yourself at…the Last Place? On this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, we bring you audio diaries from a retirement home. If you enjoy this podcast, please help us reach our year-end fundraising goal! Every dollar will help us produce more stories. Donate at radiodiaries.org
A Guitar, A Cello, And The Day That Changed Music
November 19, 2015 18:36 - 17 minutes - 10.2 MBNovember 23, 1936 was a good day for recorded music. Two men – an ocean apart – sat before a microphone and began to play. One was a cello prodigy who had performed for the Queen of Spain; the other played guitar and was a regular in the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. But on this day, Pablo Casals and Robert Johnson both made recordings that would change music history.
The Story of ‘Ballad for Americans’
November 05, 2015 22:22 - 13 minutes - 14.9 MBHow a ten minute operatic folk cantata managed to unite Democrats, Republicans and Communists.
Serving 9-5: Diaries from Prison Guards
October 22, 2015 20:00 - 24 minutes - 29.7 MBPolk Youth Institution in Butner, North Carolina is a prison for young men between the ages of 19-25. For our series Prison Diaries, I gave tape recorders to a handful of inmates at Polk to tell the story of life behind bars. After visiting the prison for a few months, I realized I had been overlooking the stories of the guards. Pretty much every guard I talked to said they serve time too – in eight hour shifts. In this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, listen to the audio diari...
The Man Who Put the ‘P’ in NPR
October 08, 2015 20:10 - 21 minutes - 26.6 MBOne of the best mission statements we’ve ever read is the original NPR mission, which was written in 1969 by Bill Siemering. Bill is an amazing guy who, at the age of 80, continues to help create radio stations and programs in developing countries around the world. The manifesto Bill wrote is no longer NPR’s official mission statement but it’s a lovely reminder of why we do this work. It’s truly worth reading. Here at Radio Diaries we like history – including our own. So with help ...
Crime Pays
September 11, 2015 07:00 - 22 minutes - 27.4 MBThis month’s podcast is about what it takes to get people to change. We focus on a group of people that might be the hardest to change – or at least they’ve had the most money thrown at them in hopes of change: Criminals. Back in 2006, Richmond, CA was named the ninth most dangerous city in the country, with 42 murders for a population of about 100,000. Then they brought in a new police chief and started doing all kinds of things differently. And it worked. Homicides are now a thir...
Crime Pays
September 11, 2015 07:00 - 22 minutes - 27.4 MBThis month’s podcast is about what it takes to get people to change. We focus on a group of people that might be the hardest to change – or at least they’ve had the most money thrown at them in hopes of change: Criminals. Back in 2006, Richmond, CA was named the ninth most dangerous city in the country, with 42 murders for a population of about 100,000. Then they brought in a new police chief and started doing all kinds of things differently. And it worked. Homicides are now a thir...
Strange Fruit
August 06, 2015 21:13 - 17 minutes - 8.47 MB“Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck, for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, for the sun to rot, for a tree to drop. Here is a strange and bitter crop.” -Abel Meeropol Poet and songwriter Abel Meeropol wrote that lament after seeing a photograph of two black teenagers hanging from a tree, after being lynched in Marion, Indiana, on August 7, 1930. Meeropol’s song, “Strange Fruit” was later made famous by Billie Holiday. A secret, missing from the photograph, is that a thir...
Mandela’s Prison Years
July 09, 2015 03:35 - 17 minutes - 22.5 MBWhile Mandela and other political leaders languished in prison, the government cracked down. It seemed that resistance to apartheid had been crushed. But on June 16, 1976, a student uprising in Soweto sparked a new generation of activism. This is Chapter 3 of our documentary (and 2015 Audiobook of the Year) Mandela: An Audio History. Plus, the story behind the only known recording of Nelson Mandela during his 27 years in prison. More information about the project is available at m...
A Visit to the Memory Palace
June 18, 2015 17:00 - 11 minutes - 15.1 MBBig, happy announcement: The Memory Palace is the newest member of Radiotopia! To celebrate, we bring you an episode from The Memory Palace, by Nate DiMeo. It’s the story of Guglielmo Marconi, sometimes called the inventor of radio…and his dreams of a super-radio that would allow him to hear every sound ever made. We pair Marconi’s story with our sound portrait of Frank Schubert, the last civilian lighthouse keeper in the U.S.
Matthew and the Judge
June 05, 2015 06:05 - 20 minutes - 24.2 MBWe gave both Judge Jeremiah, a Rhode Island juvenile court judge, and Matthew, a 16-year-old repeat offender, tape recorders. Judge Jeremiah released Matthew early, for good behavior. Two weeks later, Matthew was arrested again for selling drugs. Through their diaries, Matthew and the judge tell the same story from two different sides of the bench.
Matthew and the Judge
June 05, 2015 06:05 - 20 minutes - 24.2 MBWe gave both Judge Jeremiah, a Rhode Island juvenile court judge, and Matthew, a 16-year-old repeat offender, tape recorders. Judge Jeremiah released Matthew early, for good behavior. Two weeks later, Matthew was arrested again for selling drugs. Through their diaries, Matthew and the judge tell the same story from two different sides of the bench.
Seeing the Forrest Through the Little Trees
May 22, 2015 16:18 - 33 minutes - 21.1 MBThe Education of Little Tree is an iconic best-selling book, with a message about living in harmony with nature, and compassion for people of all kinds. But there’s a very different story behind the book. It begins with the most infamous racist political speech in American History. This week on the Radio Diaries Podcast, the true story of the untrue story of The Education of Little Tree.
The Traveling Electric Chair
May 07, 2015 21:04 - 30 minutes - 19.4 MBBridgette McGee grew up knowing nothing about her grandfather, Willie McGee. Now she is on a quest to unearth everything she can about his life – and his death. In 1945, Willie McGee was accused of raping a white woman. The all-white jury took less than three minutes to find him guilty and McGee was sentenced to death. Over the next six years, the case went through three trials and sparked international protests and appeals from Albert Einstein, William Faulkner, Paul Robeson, and ...
From Bullets to Balance Sheets
April 25, 2015 00:10 - 10 minutes - 11.6 MBAs a teenager, Kamari Ridgle was a drug dealer and drive-by shooter until a near-death experience led him to his true love…accounting. Let us know what you think of the Radio Diaries Podcast. Take this 5-minute survey and you could win a pair of Tivoli headphones! surveynerds.com/diaries
Claudette Colvin – A “Teenage Rosa Parks”
March 05, 2015 18:47 - 11 minutes - 12.8 MBWhat makes a hero? Why do we remember some stories and not others? Consider Claudette Colvin. She was a 15-year-old girl in the segregated city of Montgomery, Alabama. On March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. Nine months later, Rosa Parks did the exact same thing. Parks, of course, became a powerful symbol of the civil rights movement. But Claudette Colvin has largely been left out of the history books.
First Kiss
February 12, 2015 09:00 - 20 minutes - 25 MBJosh Cutler has Tourette’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable tics and involuntary verbal outbursts. In this episode, listen to his teenage diary about getting his first kiss. “What I have here is an envelope on which this girl Nicole wrote down instructions on how to kiss. It says: ‘pucker lips, slowly open mouth, slowly slide tongue in, repeat steps 1, 2, and 3.’ She made that list for me because I made out with her and she said I was doing it wrong. So ...
The Greatest Songwriter You’ve Never Heard Of
February 03, 2015 22:14 - 17 minutes - 20.6 MBYou probably don’t know her name, but you definitely know her songs. Rose Marie McCoy passed away recently at the age of 92. On this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, we’re remembering Rose and her music.
George Wallace and the Legacy of a Sentence
January 23, 2015 05:00 - 12 minutes - 14.5 MBIf you’ve seen the movie Selma, our new podcast features two people who are important characters in the film: Representative John Lewis, the civil rights leader who was brutally beaten while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge; and Alabama Governor George Wallace, who ordered his state troopers to stop the march. Our story takes place a few years before the Selma march, on the day of Wallace’s inauguration as governor in 1963. As he stepped up to the podium, Wallace delivered one of ...
The View from the 79th Floor
January 08, 2015 17:45 - 16 minutes - 16.4 MBOn July 28, 1945 an Army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. A dictation machine in a nearby office happened to capture the sound of the plane as it hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor. Find out what happened next in this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast.
Miss Subways
December 22, 2014 08:00 - 10 minutes - 9.91 MBBeauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman. But for 35 years, one contest in New York City celebrated the everyday working girl. Each month starting in 1941, a young woman was elected “Miss Subways,” and her face gazed down on transit riders as they rode through the city. Her photo was accompanied by a short bio describing her hopes, dreams and aspirations. The public got to choose the winners – so Miss Subway represented the perfect New York miss. She was also a barome...
Last Man on the Mountain – Updated
December 11, 2014 07:00 - 16 minutes - 16 MBA few years ago, we produced a story about the greatest underdog we’d ever met: Jimmy Weekley. Jimmy was the last remaining resident of Pigeonroost Hollow, West Virginia. Jimmy spent most of the last two decades fighting one of the largest coal companies in the country in an attempt to save his hometown. He said he was born in Pigeonroost Hollow, and he planned to die there. This year, he did. He was 74. Today on the Radio Diaries Podcast, we’re remembering Jimmy Weekley, The Last ...
Busman’s Holiday
November 13, 2014 04:32 - 20 minutes - 22.4 MBThe story of William Cimillo, a New York City bus driver who snapped one day in 1947, left his regular route in the Bronx, and drove his municipal bus down to Florida.
Weasel’s Diary, Revisited
November 07, 2014 12:19 - 34 minutes - 18.2 MBJose William Huezo Soriano – aka Weasel – is a 26-year-old Los Angeles resident who gets deported to his parents’ home country of El Salvador, which he has not seen since the age of five. In this episode, you’ll hear Weasel’s original audio diary, as well as an update from Weasel in which he talks about his life over the past 15 years.
Weasel’s Diary, Revisited
November 07, 2014 12:19 - 34 minutes - 18.2 MBJose William Huezo Soriano – aka Weasel – is a 26-year-old Los Angeles resident who gets deported to his parents’ home country of El Salvador, which he has not seen since the age of five. In this episode, you’ll hear Weasel’s original audio diary, as well as an update from Weasel in which he talks about his life over the past 15 years.
When Ground Zero was Radio Row
October 17, 2014 20:10 - 16 minutes - 9.4 MBFor more than four decades, the area around Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan was the largest collection of radio and electronics stores in the world. Then in 1966 the stores were bulldozed to make way for the new World Trade Center.
When Borders Move
October 06, 2014 22:50 - 15 minutes - 7.93 MBWhat happens when, instead of people crossing the border, the border crosses the people? In this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, two stories from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Working, Then and Now
September 01, 2014 16:21 - 14 minutes - 16.8 MBIn the early 1970s, radio host and oral historian Studs Terkel went around the country, tape recorder in hand, interviewing people about their jobs. Studs collected more than 130 interviews, and the result was a book called “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.” And – something unprecedented for an oral history collection – it became a bestseller. In this episode of The Radio Diaries Podcast, we bring you two of the lost interviews th...
Strange Fruit – Voices of a Lynching
August 25, 2014 21:27 - 17 minutes - 8.47 MBThe images coming out of Ferguson, MO this summer have reminded us of another upsetting image of race in America. It’s a photograph that was taken just a few hours from Ferguson, but eight decades ago…and it inspired the Billie Holiday song, Strange Fruit. Listen to our story (and be advised that it is disturbing.)
“Halfrican” Revisited
June 23, 2014 05:23 - 21 minutes - 13.6 MBWhen Jeff Rogers was 16 years old he started referring to himself as a “halfrican.” Jeff has a black father and a white mother. And like many teenagers, he was trying to figure out who he was. We met Jeff back in 1998, and gave him a tape recorder so he could document his life for our Teenage Diaries series. We started thinking about Jeff when we produced our Teenage Diaries Revisited series last year for NPR. On today’s show, Jeff’s original teenage diary, plus…a conversation we re...
Walter the Seltzerman – It’s Not Easy Being Last
June 02, 2014 19:14 - 14 minutes - 8.68 MBBack in 1919, Walter Backerman’s grandfather delivered seltzer by horse and wagon on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Today, Walter continues to deliver seltzer around the streets of New York. Some customers, like Mildred Blitz, have been on the family route for more than 50 years. When Walter’s grandfather drove his cart there were thousands of seltzer men in the city; today Walter is one of the last.
Video Podcast: Help Kickstart Our New Season
May 28, 2014 13:46 - 2 minutes - 38.7 MB VideoCheck out our Kickstarter video. (Ira Glass has a cameo!) If we reach our goal, we will bring you a new season of Radio Diaries starting in September 2014. We’ll also be putting out the Radio Diaries Podcast twice as often. Biweekly! bit.ly/RDKickstarter
The Long Shadow of Forrest Carter
May 12, 2014 12:37 - 18 minutes - 21.8 MBAsa Carter was a speechwriter for Alabama Governor George Wallace. He penned one of the most infamous speeches of the era… Wallace’s Segregation Now, Segregation Forever address. Forrest Carter was a Cherokee writer who grew up in Tennessee. His autobiography, The Education of Little Tree, is a beloved classic that has sold millions of copies around the world. But these two men shared a secret.
The Day Nelson Mandela Became Nelson Mandela
April 20, 2014 06:29 - 19 minutes - 27.2 MBThe moment Nelson Mandela really became Nelson Mandela was on April 20th, 1964 – fifty years ago today. It happened when he stood up in a stuffy South African courtroom and gave a speech. 50 years is a long time. It’s long enough for things to become history. Long enough that people start to be forgotten, stories get smoothed over, narratives get hardened in stone. That’s what happened this past December with the death of Nelson Mandela. His life story was written… in sharpie. ...
Frankie’s Teenage Diary, Revisited
March 20, 2014 16:06 - 32 minutes - 20.7 MBAs a teenager, Frankie Lewchuck recorded an audio diary about his family in rural Alabama. 16 years later, he recorded a follow up story for the Teenage Diaries Revisited series: “I went from being on the front page for football, representing my itty-bitty school, to being on the front page as a thief and a meth head.” A lot of life happens in 16 years.
Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair
February 18, 2014 20:05 - 30 minutes - 19.4 MBOn the night of May 7th, 1951, in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi, close to a thousand people gathered around the courthouse. 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.
Teenage Diaries Revisited 1-Hour Special
January 13, 2014 10:59 - 58 minutes - 38.7 MBBack in the 1990s, Radio Diaries producer Joe Richman gave tape recorders to a handful of teens and asked them to report on their own lives. Now, 16 years later, Joe checks back in with them.
A Guitar, A Cello, and the Day that Changed Music
December 20, 2013 23:55 - 17 minutes - 10.2 MBWhat would it sound like if one of the world’s greatest classical cellists, and the most legendary blues guitarist of all time…jammed together?
Mandela: An Audio History
December 05, 2013 18:56 - 1 hour - 43.3 MBAn award-winning radio series documenting the struggle against apartheid through intimate first-person accounts of Nelson Mandela himself, as well as those who fought with him, and against him. Hosted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The Last Man on the Mountain
November 14, 2013 23:59 - 17 minutes - 10.2 MBIn the 1990s, Arch Coal began mountaintop removal mining in a corner of West Virginia called Pigeonroost Hollow. There used to be dozens of houses in the area, but now there is just one. It belongs to Jimmy Weekley.
The View From the 79th Floor
October 16, 2013 00:00 - 16 minutes - 16.4 MBOn July 28, 1945 an army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. Stories from the day a plane crashed into the Empire State Building.
Teenage Diaries Revisited: Juan
August 19, 2013 23:58 - 31 minutes - 20.1 MB16 years ago, Juan reported on his life as a recent Mexican immigrant living in poverty in Texas. In his new diary, Juan takes us on a tour of the life he has built since he first crossed the Rio Grande. It looks a lot like the typical American dream: a house, 2 cars, 3 kids—except for the fact he’s still living illegally in the U.S. In this podcast, listen to Juan’s diaries as well as a conversation about the recording process with producer Joe Richman.