White Lies
24 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 12K ratingsOn the morning of August 21, 1991, a group of Cuban detainees took over a federal prison in Talladega, Alabama, and demanded their freedom. But how did they get here? And what became of them after? In season two of NPR's Pulitzer-finalist show, we unspool a decades-long story about immigration, indefinite detention, and a secret list. It's a story about a betrayal at the heart of our country's ideals. And in charting a course to our current moment of crisis at the border, we expose the lies that bind us together.
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Episodes
Taking Cover
April 06, 2023 11:15 - 49 minutes - 45.7 MBNPR's Pentagon Correspondent, Tom Bowman, receives a shocking tip from a trusted source: A deadly explosion during the Iraq War was an accident—friendly fire, covered up by the Marine Corps—and the son of a powerful politician may have been involved. Listen to the full story in NPR's Embedded podcast.
The Excludables
March 16, 2023 10:00 - 1 hour - 59.5 MBIn our final episode of the season, we start researching the names on the secret list of 2,746 Cuban excludables. What we find confirms many of our suspicions about the arbitrariness of how the U.S. government created the list. Our reporting takes us — where else? — to Cuba, to finally track down the men on the roof and hear them tell their own stories. What had they hoped to find in this country and what had they found instead? Finally, our journey takes us to one last interview in a high ri...
The List
March 09, 2023 10:55 - 48 minutes - 44.3 MBSince we began reporting this story, we've been after a list. A secret list. On it are the names of 2,746 people whom the US government deemed excludable, including the men on the roof. The government has kept this list so secret that at one point it went so far as to classify it. None of the Mariel detainees knew if their name was on the list or not. In fact, nobody knew what names were on the list. Until now. In Episode 7, the story of a list that sparked uprisings, separated families, and ...
The List
March 09, 2023 10:55 - 48 minutes - 44.3 MBSince we began reporting this story, we've been after a list. A secret list. On it are the names of 2,746 people whom the US government deemed excludable, including the men on the roof. The government has kept this list so secret that at one point it went so far as to classify it. None of the Mariel detainees knew if their name was on the list or not. In fact, nobody knew what names were on the list. Until now. In Episode 7, the story of a list that sparked uprisings, separated families, and ...
The Trial
March 02, 2023 10:50 - 41 minutes - 37.6 MBIn Episode 6, we sneak into the graveyard of the Atlanta federal penitentiary with a radical peace activist to learn more about what happened in the prison in late 1984. A peaceful protest by detainees held in the Atlanta pen resulted in a violent crackdown, and one of the detainees, a man named Jose Hernandez-Mesa, was charged in federal court with inciting a riot. We tell the story of his trial — and the surprising verdict that began reshaping public opinion about the Mariel Cubans who were...
The Trial
March 02, 2023 10:50 - 41 minutes - 37.6 MBIn Episode 6, we sneak into the graveyard of the Atlanta federal penitentiary with a radical peace activist to learn more about what happened in the prison in late 1984. A peaceful protest by detainees held in the Atlanta pen resulted in a violent crackdown, and one of the detainees, a man named Jose Hernandez-Mesa, was charged in federal court with inciting a riot. We tell the story of his trial — and the surprising verdict that began reshaping public opinion about the Mariel Cubans who were...
The Pen
February 23, 2023 11:00 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MBOn May 18, 1980, a man named Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez arrived in Key West from the port of Mariel. With no family waiting to sponsor him, he was sent by plane to a resettlement camp at an army base. There he was interviewed by the INS and, a few days later, he boarded another plane, this one bound for the federal prison in Atlanta. But wait - he'd committed no crime, so why was the US government detaining him? And how long could they hold him? In Episode 5, the story of Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez and...
The Pen
February 23, 2023 11:00 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MBOn May 18, 1980, a man named Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez arrived in Key West from the port of Mariel. With no family waiting to sponsor him, he was sent by plane to a resettlement camp at an army base. There he was interviewed by the INS and, a few days later, he boarded another plane, this one bound for the federal prison in Atlanta. But wait - he'd committed no crime, so why was the US government detaining him? And how long could they hold him? In Episode 5, the story of Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez and...
The Entry Fiction
February 16, 2023 11:00 - 54 minutes - 50 MBWhen President Carter promised to welcome the men and women arriving on the Mariel boatlift with "an open heart and open arms," he had referred to them as refugees. But technically speaking, they weren't refugees. They were classified as entrants, an immigration status with a peculiar legal standing in the United States. While entrants are physically allowed to enter the country, legally they're still at the border, asking to come in. Their presence in the country is known as a legal fiction ...
The Rumors
February 09, 2023 11:00 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MBDuring our reporting, we heard one story over and over again: that Fidel Castro had emptied his prisons to fill the boatlift. It's a story that's been told so often and with such conviction that of course it must be true, right? But what if this was more theater than history? What was happening in 1980 in Miami and throughout the country that made this story so compelling? Why did it feel so true to so many people? In Episode 3, we go to Miami to find out. Want to hear the next episode of Whi...
The Boatlift
February 02, 2023 10:58 - 49 minutes - 45.4 MBThe story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in 1991. It didn't start when they were detained in federal prisons. And it didn't start when the government made a secret list of their names in 1984. Instead, it started in the spring of 1980, with one of the largest refugee crises in American history: the Mariel Boatlift. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.
The Men on the Roof
January 26, 2023 14:00 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBIt all started with a photograph. A photograph from 1991 of a prison takeover in rural Alabama. A photograph of a group of men on the roof of that prison holding a bedsheet scrawled with a message: "Pray for us." In the first episode of the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace go searching for answers to the questions raised by this photograph. Who were these men? What on earth had made them want to take over that prison? And what became of them after? As they s...
Season 2: Trailer
January 24, 2023 14:00 - 3 minutes - 3.02 MBIn 1991, a group of men took over a federal prison in rural Alabama. But these men weren't prisoners, they were immigration detainees, all of them from Cuba. And none of them were serving time for a sentence; they were being indefinitely detained. Who were these men? What in the world had brought them from Cuba to a prison in rural Alabama, and what became of them afterward? On the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace set out to find the men who took over the pr...
White Lies presents The United States of Anxiety
January 31, 2020 15:30 - 27 minutes - 25.1 MBWhite Lies presents an episode for the new season of WNYC's The United States of Anxiety. The series is about the unfinished business of American history and its grip on our future — their starting point is Reconstruction and its legacy today.
Bonus: A Strange And Bitter Crop
October 29, 2019 22:00 - 26 minutes - 24.9 MBFrom the NPR podcast Code Switch: Eighty-five years ago, a crowd of several thousand white people gathered in Jackson County, Fla., to participate in the lynching of a man named Claude Neal. The poet L. Lamar Wilson grew up there, but didn't learn about Claude Neal until he was working on a research paper in high school. When he heard the story, he knew he had to do something.
A Dangerous Kind Of Self-Delusion
June 25, 2019 04:00 - 1 hour - 61.7 MBIn our final episode, we examine the legacy of the Rev. James Reeb's death. We speak both to his descendants and to those of one of his attackers, exploring how the trauma and the lies that followed it affected both families.
Learn Not To Hear It
June 18, 2019 04:00 - 51 minutes - 48 MBIn Episode 6, we reveal the identity of the fourth man who participated in the attack on the Rev. James Reeb.
The X On The Map
June 11, 2019 04:00 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBIn Episode 5, we search for the fourth attacker while digging into the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black civil rights activist who was murdered in Alabama just weeks before the Rev. James Reeb. Jackson's killer was brought to justice in 2010. We look at his case for strategies to help solve Reeb's.
The Sphinx Of Washington Street
June 04, 2019 04:00 - 44 minutes - 40 MBIn Episode 4, we find a woman who says she knows who killed the Rev. James Reeb, because she was there. She's ready — for the first time in more than 50 years — to tell the truth about what she saw.
The Sphinx Of Washington Street
June 04, 2019 04:00 - 45 minutes - 42 MBIn Episode 4, we find a woman who says she knows who killed the Rev. James Reeb, because she was there. She's ready — for the first time in more than 50 years — to tell the truth about what she saw.
The Counternarrative
May 28, 2019 04:00 - 50 minutes - 47.3 MBIn Episode 3, we break down the conspiracy theory that emerged after the Rev. James Reeb's murder: that he was allowed to die or was killed because the civil rights movement needed a white martyr.
The Who And The What
May 21, 2019 04:00 - 57 minutes - 54.1 MBIn Episode 2, we unravel the aftermath of the Rev. James Reeb's murder: the arrest of three men and the defense brought at trial. We also track down the last living jurors.
The Murder Of The Rev. James Reeb
May 14, 2019 04:00 - 51 minutes - 47.8 MBIn 1965, the Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Ala. No one was ever held to account. We return to the town where it happened, searching for new leads in an old story.
Introducing White Lies
May 06, 2019 15:05 - 2 minutes - 1.91 MBA new serialized podcast from NPR investigates a 1965 cold case. New episodes every Tuesday starting May 14.