Harry S. Truman once wrote that the President of the United States is a “glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.” And yet, it’s a job that people spend millions of dollars trying to get. Alben Barkley certainly wanted the job. He was in Congress for 40 years, but Barkley never made it to the pinnacle of power. He got close – he was our country’s 35th Vice President, serving under Harry S. Tru...
Jul 14, 2016•11 min
Throughout American history, one of the most important job qualifications for the office of President has been knowing how to talk. You have to be able to deliver a speech that will rally the people. For Lincoln it was: “Four score and seven years ago,” FDR had: “A date which will live in infamy.” JFK asked, “Ask not what your country can do for you…” You get the idea. But one of the most influential speeches in American political history is one most people have never even heard of: William Jenn...
Jul 07, 2016•20 min
If Hillary Clinton wins in November, she will become the first female President in American history. But she is not the first woman to seek this office. Today, we look back at three of the most groundbreaking female presidential candidates — who never won the White House. This is the first in our 3-part series: Contenders. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 24, 2016•28 min
Majd Abdulghani is a teenager living in Saudi Arabia, one of the most restrictive countries for women in the world. She wants to be a scientist. Her family wants to arrange her marriage. From the age of 19 to 21, Majd has been chronicling her life with a microphone, taking us inside a society where the voices of women are rarely heard. She records herself practicing karate, conducting experiments in a genetics lab, and fending off pressure to accept an arranged marriage. In her audio diary, Majd...
Jun 01, 2016•33 min
In celebration of Mother’s Day and Radio Diaries’ 20th anniversary this month, we’re revisiting Melissa’s story. As an 18 year old, Melissa recorded an audio diary as she gave birth to her son Issaiah. Over the next two decades, Melissa and her son faced many challenges, from eviction notices to a life-threatening medical diagnosis. Melissa recently recorded a new “grown-up” diary chronicling her life as a single working mother and introducing listeners to teenage Issaiah. In this episode, liste...
Apr 28, 2016•42 min
20 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apr 08, 2016•22 min
In 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Mar 25, 2016•13 min
Nine 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Mar 02, 2016•12 min
Paula 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.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Feb 18, 2016•18 min
As 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Feb 05, 2016•31 min
“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 something.” In...
Jan 22, 2016•19 min
The 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jan 07, 2016•24 min
Four 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 most awkward...
Dec 24, 2015•20 min
When 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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Dec 03, 2015•31 min
November 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Nov 19, 2015•17 min
How a ten minute operatic folk cantata managed to unite Democrats, Republicans and Communists. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Nov 05, 2015•13 min
Polk 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 diaries of prison ...
Oct 22, 2015•24 min
One 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 from the good ...
Oct 08, 2015•22 min
This 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 third of what they...
Sep 11, 2015•22 min
“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 third black boy wa...
Aug 06, 2015•17 min
While 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 mandelahistory.o...
Jul 09, 2015•18 min
Big, 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Jun 18, 2015•12 min
We 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jun 05, 2015•20 min
The 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
May 22, 2015•33 min
Bridgette 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 Josephine Bake...
May 07, 2015•31 min
As 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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apr 25, 2015•11 min
When George F. Johnson died, the nation witnessed one of the largest funerals in U.S. history. What did Johnson do? He made shoes. Lots of them. 100 years ago, the Endicott Johnson Corporation, headquartered in upstate New York, was the largest shoe factory in the world. But George F. Johnson wasn’t only famous for his shoes. He also became known for his views on how a company should treat its workers. Some people called it “welfare capitalism.” Johnson had a different name for it: The Square De...
Apr 02, 2015•19 min
In the early 1940s, the US Airforce faced a dilemma. Thousands of new airplanes were coming off assembly lines and needed to be delivered to military bases nationwide, yet most of America’s pilots were overseas fighting the war. To solve the problem, the government launched an experimental program to train women pilots. They were known as the WASPs, the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Please take our listener survey! http://www.surveynerds.com/diaries Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org...
Mar 19, 2015•25 min
What 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choi...
Mar 05, 2015•12 min
Josh 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 I guess that’s...
Feb 12, 2015•21 min
