Wayne Holmquist has an unusual hobby. He is a dowser. As Wayne puts it he has been learning how to dowse since age six and he is now in his eighties. His uncommon hobby has led to some unusual experiences.

Rob MacClanahan brings Ebenezer Scrooge and the voice of Alastair Sim from the silver screen to your radio together with fun facts about Charles Dickens and the 1951 film, uncalled for commentary, and music!  It's all right here on THE TIME TRAVELER, broadcasting every Monday late night on 95.1FM KFOK (Georgetown, California) and streaming live around the earth courtesy of kfok.org 

This is a holiday themed warm-up for next week's 2015 Christmas special, starring Ralph Fiennes as Jesus Christ in "The Miracle Maker".

In today’s installment of the Untold Stories of Central Minnesota, Arts & Cultural Heritage Producer Jeff Carmack talks with SCSU Ethic Studies Professor Christopher Lehman.  

Lehman has a new book coming out this fall through the Minnesota Historical Society Press called “Slavery’s Reach” that discusses the different ways that slavery affected Minnesota before, during, and after the Civil War.  He also presentied at Jule’s Bistro in St. Cloud on Wednesday, June 26, 2019 as part of SCSU’s College of Liberal Arts Anabranch program with a program focused on the history of African Americans in St. Cloud.

You probably shouldn't even listen to this week's episode; it's too much for you to handle. This week's very special Halloween episode is the creepiest, grossest and scariest episode of Deemable Tech ever! If you dare, you'll hear all about zombie computers, how to send tweets and Facebook posts from beyond the grave, what to do with your digital estate, how to recover passwords from our departed relatives, how your cell phone is probably going to kill you, or at least make you really sick, new high-tech grave markers, and folks who chose to commit virtual (social media) suicide and others who plan on living forever and are using the Internet to try to make it happen. All that, and Ray tries his best Bela Lugosi impression, on this episode of Deemable Tech!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 904-372-DEEM (3336), or send us an email and questions@deemable.com. We'll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Links we mentioned on today's show:

• My Father Sent Me a Facebook Message From Beyond the Grave | The Stir
• Deleting & Memorializing Deceased Facebook Accounts
• Deleting Deceased LinkedIn Accounts
• Deleting Deceased Twitter Accounts
• Accessing Deceased Gmail Accounts
• https://www.securesafe.com
• http://legacylocker.com/
• http://www.assetlock.net/
• KeePass - http://keepass.info
• LastPass - http://lastpass.com
• RoboForm - http://www.roboform.com
• EmergencyLink - www.emergencylink.com
• Mobile phones have more germs than a toilet seat | Mail Online
• Mobile phones can cause flu, pinkeye and diarrhoea
• Why Your Cellphone Has More Bacteria Than a Toilet Seat
• Ebola Phone Theft: Man Steals From Quarantined Uganda Hospital Patient, Contracts Virus
• Bacteria-Eating Viruses May Power Cell Phones - Scientific American
• #BaldForBieber Hoax Teaches Kids to Fact Check Before Shaving Their Heads
• Digital Legacys
• Quiring Monuments Living Headstones
• All Things Considered - QR Codes For Headstones Keep Dearly Departed Close : NPR
• Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet Your Real Neighbours again!
• LifeNaut
• iTunes Store: About authorization and deauthoriation
• Call waiting not working properly : Apple Support Communities
• While on a call on iPhone 4 the call waiting : Apple Support Communities

In late April, nearly three dozen Twin Ports residents boarded a bus for a 1,223-mile trip to Montgomery, Ala. Their destination: The opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a moving, interactive monument detailing the systematic lynchings of African Americans in the century following the Civil War — including in Duluth in 1920.

Yet theirs was more than a sightseeing trip. The “Alabama 35,” as they called themselves along the way, included co-founders of Duluth’s Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, an edifice predating Montgomery’s by 15 years as the nation’s first prominent acknowledgement of a lynching at the site of the crime. The travelers also included Mike Tusken, Duluth’s police chief and the great nephew of the woman whose false accusation of rape led to the city’s horrific triple lynching — a participant who symbolizes the ultimate act of healing and reconciliation.

Traveling with them and narrating is Henry Banks, co-founder of the Duluth memorial and host of Wisconsin Public Radio’s “People of Color.” The producers are Banks and Robin Washington, whose previous acclaimed documentaries include the Civil Rights Movement history “You Don’t Have to Ride Jim Crow!” and the John Coltrane jazz special, “My Favorite Things at 50.”

“An Outrage” is a documentary film about lynching in the American South, directed by Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren.Beginning with the end of the Civil War, and well into the middle of the twentieth century, the extralegal and socially sanctioned practice of lynching claimed the lives of at least 3,959 African American men, women and children. Also: Renowned author Ernest Gaines is a descendant of slaves who was raised in on a former Louisiana plantation. Keith Clark says Gaines many novels, including A Lesson Before Dying and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, launched America’s interest in exploring African American history. Plus:We share a series of reflections by Charlottesville residents recorded at the Dialogues on Race and Inequity at the University of Virginia.

Later on: For many Americans, August 12th marks a shift in the national conversation about white supremacy and racism. For the people who were injured in the Charlottesville attack that killed Heather Heyer, the 12th marks day one of a long process of recovery. We share the story of one person who was injured that day. And: The Columbia Journalism Review recently convened a panel of journalists for “Race, Racism, and the News” in Charlottesville. We feature an excerpt from the discussion that includes local freelance reporter Jordy Yader, the New York Times' Jenna Wortham, and Slate chief political correspondent Jamelle Bouie.

"An Outrage" is a documentary film about lynching in the American South, directed by Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren. From the end of the Civil War well into the middle of the twentieth century, lynching claimed the lives of at least 3,959 African American men, women and children. Also: Renowned author Ernest Gaines is a descendant of slaves who was raised in on a former Louisiana plantation. Keith Clark says Gaines' many novels, including "A Lesson Before Dying" and "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman", launched America's interest in exploring African American history. Plus: We share a series of reflections by Charlottesville residents recorded at the 'Dialogues on Race and Inequity' at the University of Virginia. 

Alongside the army of men on the front lines of conflict was an army of women in support roles. From the Red Cross volunteers who boosted morale to the nurses who treated injuries, women were a major part of soldiers experience of the war. We hear the stories of some of these women, and connect with scholars on how women's roles in Vietnam reflected the gender norms of the era. 
Later in the Show: The war upended the lives of millions of women at home, some of whom turned to activism in an effort to bring their husbands home. We tell the stories of war wives who allied with anti-war activists to bring about the return of POWs.
 

In early 2011, NPR's Kelly McEvers started to see things in slow motion. She cried unpredictably. She was a correspondent in the turbulent Middle East, in the time of the Arab uprisings. Colleagues and friends were being kidnapped. Some were getting killed. 

But still, she went toward the story. The next year, 2012, was the deadliest year on record for journalists. It was a huge hit to the "tribe" of war correspondents of which Kelly is a part. These are people who choose to go into conflict, to put themselves at risk. But they also enjoy the role, the adrenaline, the life. Some of them, like Kelly, have children. 

As she reported in dangerous places like Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, she braved gunfire, explosions, and tear gas, recording diaries the whole time. She also turned her reporting skills on her own life, seeking advice from doctors, scientists, and colleagues. Her goal was to answer one question: Why do otherwise intelligent people risk their lives when they don't have to? 

Twenty months later, in collaboration with independent producer Jay Allison of Transom.org, the result is a documentary radio hour called "Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent's Dilemma."  

The program includes interviews with  British journalist Anna Blundy, whose father, the late war correspondent David Blundy, was killed by a sniper while covering the Salvadoran Civil War; BBC World Affairs correspondent, Paul Wood; Jon Lee Anderson international investigative reporter for The New Yorker; international journalist, Christiane Amanpour, for CNN/ABC; and Sebastian Junger, who with the late Tim Hetherington made the award-winning film, Restrepo, about the war in Afghanistan. 

It's a gripping story, an unprecedented and intimate portrait of the sacrifices reporters and their families make to tell untold stories -- and the sometimes dangerous allure of the job. 

It premieres on the public radio website, Transom.org, on June 25th, and is available to public radio stations through NPR and PRX.  

Produced by:

Kelly McEvers is a Middle East correspondent for National Public Radio based in Beirut, Lebanon, mainly covering the conflict in Syria. In 2012 she was awarded the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia award, the Peabody Award, the Gracie Award and an Overseas Press Club citation.

Jay Allison is variously the founder, collaborator, and producer of The Moth Radio Hour, This I Believe, Lost & Found Sound, Transom.org, PRX.org, and WCAI on Cape Cod where he lives. He has created hundreds of documentaries and has received six Peabody Awards.

All wars are the same, it is said; only the scenery changes. And the repercussions are pretty much the same too.

Over the course of five years, Adam Piore gathered the stories of the surviving members of Delta Company, a Vietnam-era paratrooper unit; Jay Allison joined him for the last two years when it turned from a book into a radio story. We’re proud now to feature the finished hour on Transom and here at PRX.

At Fort Campbell before deployment, Delta was a ragtag bunch, the “leftovers” as one of their fellow soldiers put it, but on the night of March 18th, 1968, they became heroes. Their leader received the Medal of Honor and two others were awarded the nation’s second highest honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, for their valor that night when the company endured a long and devastating battle—not as long or as devastating, however, as the years that followed, after the men of Delta Company came home separately to live alone with the memories.

Adam Piore became dedicated to this group of guys and to their common story of trauma, guilt, courage, heartbreak, and reunion. This is Adam’s first work for radio and his notes about the transition from print are at Transom. You’re invited to come talk with him about his process or the finished work and to see archival photos.

Produced by:

Adam Piore has spent the last two decades writing for newspapers and magazines, covering everything from the U.S. Congress to the aftermath of genocide to the War in Iraq. You can read some of his recent work at adampiore.com.

Jay Allison is variously the founder, collaborator, and producer of The Moth Radio Hour, This I Believe, Lost & Found Sound, Transom.org, PRX.org, and WCAI on Cape Cod where he lives. He has created hundreds of documentaries and has received six Peabody Awards. More at jayallison.com

Transom.org  channels new work and voices to public radio, with a focus on the power of story, and on the mission of public media in a changing media environment. Transom won the first Peabody Award ever granted exclusively to a website. Transom.org is a project of Atlantic Public Media which runs the Transom Story Workshops and founded WCAI, the public radio station in Woods Hole, Mass.

Support for this work comes from National Endowment for the Arts 
 

In 1984 there were no Route 66 associations, historic signs, fun runs or anything else to promote or identify the road. Only fading landmarks with names like 66 Motel or 66 Diner stood as sentinels of an era gone by. Such is the perspective of this audio documentary. Songwriter Bobby Troup tells the story of his 1946 hit, "Get Your Kicks on Route 66." Also Gladys Cutberth, know as "Mrs. 66," and other members of the old "66 Association" talk about the early years of the road. And Mickey Mantle explains, "If it hadn't been for U.S. 66 I wouldn't have been a Yankee." These people and others tell about the beginnings of the highway and the making of a legend.

On the eve of WWI, Antoine Köpe had a front seat to history. A century later, Antoine’s elaborate journals, cartoons, recordings, and collections reveal what it was like in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Filmmaker Nefin Dinç (James Madison University) is collecting Antoine’s memories into a new documentary. And: Native-Uruguayan Gabriela Toletti (Tidewater Community College and Old Dominion University) says that even after decades of living in the United States, she feels like she has a foot in both worlds. She finds comfort and insight in the works of Uruguayan playwright Dino Armas, who writes about the difficulties of migration.

Later in the show: Ann Marie Stock (William and Mary) has opened her heart to Cuban film and her home to Cuban filmmakers. She travels regularly to Cuba and discusses how Cuban film changed in the early 21st century. Plus: In Mexico, theaters are more than just a place for entertainment. Jacqueline Bixler (Virginia Tech) says they are a forum for working out the traumatic events that have shaped Mexican history. Bixler was named Virginia Outstanding Faculty of 2016.

A “brig” is a two-masted ship, a big ship. And “brig” is the word used for a prison on a ship. And the Brig Creole is an 1800s ship that was meant to deliver 135 enslaved people to New Orleans. "Meant" being the key word here…

The ship left Virginia on October 30, 1841, with plans to take the same route that dozens of ships took to the port of New Orleans.

Walter Johnson, History Professor at Harvard University, says as of 1841, nothing could have been more ordinary than this journey. This was the height of the domestic slave trade in the United States.

“The bulk of the enslaved people who form the labor force in the emerging cotton kingdom are taken from the upper south, as one of the largest forced migrations in human history,” Johnson says.

Ships brought thousands of people into the New Orleans slave market. But those on board the Creole were determined to make moves and not land in the cotton kingdom.

Britain outlawed the international slave trade with the Slave Trade Act of 1807, and its ships take the lead in policing the high seas, searching ships of other nations. They sign bilateral treaties with Atlantic trading nations like Portugal, Sweden, France and others. But there’s one country that responds to this with "aw, hell no": America.

"So a British naval crew trying to interdict slave shipments is not allowed to stop a ship that has the American flag”, says Johnson. “What that means, in the words of the historian WEB DuBois, is that through the first half of the 19th century, Old Glory became the slave trader’s flag of choice.”

Other countries became hip to what the U.S. flag meant at sea, and started switching flags.

“So say you're a Spanish slave trader and you see a British naval ship on the horizon. The first thing the slave traders do is they run up the American flag, because that way they are protected by the mantle of American national sovereignty.”

So the U.S. was notoriously defiant, and we knew it. But back to 1841 and the Brig Creole, sailing the Atlantic under that flag, and everything it represented. A week into the journey, on the night of November 7, William Merritt, one of the slave traders aboard the Creole, goes down into the hold.

“He sees Madison Washington, who is one of the slave men” Johnson says. “He’s out of the hold where he's supposed to be. There's a confrontation, and the slave trader escapes from Washington's grasp and runs back on to the deck of the ship. He hears a shot fired and realizes that some of the slaves in the ship are in revolt, and within four or five hours the slaves have complete control of the ship.”

One slave trader is killed and thrown overboard, and captain Robert Ensor is wounded. Nineteen slaves are later identified as the rebels responsible for the revolt. They had heard of a ship that had departed from Virginia the year before, and shipwrecked in the Bahamas. That was British territory -- no slave trade allowed -- and those shipwrecked slaves were eventually emancipated by the local British government.

It was with that story in mind that the rebels took command of the Brig Creole, and re-routed it to Nassau, Bahamas.

The ship sails into the port in the Bahamas, and at that point, the 19 rebels kind of step down from power to mix in with the rest of the slaves. This is in hopes of not being targeted as criminals, but Johnson says what it also does is allow the white crew to reassert control and let Old Glory do the talking. “By raising the American flag is to say to the British ‘you have no interest in this. Just give us back the cargo and we'll push on to New Orleans.’”

Not so fast, say the British, who come on board to investigate what happened. They’re told by the Brig Creole crew that a group of slaves rebelled and briefly took control, which is why they’re docked in Nassau. But the Brits respond by saying, "Hey, USA, you can’t claim that a slave revolt has occurred. Not here, anyway."

“Because if there's no such thing as slavery in the British Empire,” says Johnson, “then there cannot be a slave revolt.”

The white crew just wants to keep the slaves on board, get back out to sea, and go make their profit in New Orleans. But Johnson points out that the community of Nassau at that time is mainly African. It’s full of emancipated slaves, and the West Indian regiment of Britain’s army. They realize what’s going on relates to them to the extent that many of them get into small boats with clubs and go out and position themselves around the Creole in order to protect it from any effort by the white crew to take it away and sail it back to New Orleans.

When the Americans realized need to regain control in the harbor, they tried to buy more weapons on shore, and no one in Nassau would sell them weapons. Johnson says there's this revolutionary Black Atlantic, there's the symbol of the American flag moving through the water saying "Don't mess with us, don't touch us," there's the British who have abandoned this ideology of slavery. And then all three of those forces just comes to a head at Nassau. “It’s pretty amazing what they did, right? So there's a story of the establishment of political solidarity under extreme conditions here.”

Political solidarity on many levels. As Johnson describes, the community in Nassau surrounds the docked Brig Creole in smaller boats to say "you guys aren’t going anywhere with those slaves -- they’re not yours anymore."’ The local government defends the community’s actions, and lends further support with their army! And the whole town boycotts American business by refusing to sell them weapons. Johnson says that it’s important to remember that before all this, was the plan to take over the ship in the first place.

“I mean these are 19 people who are from different areas of Virginia who have not known one another before they met in the slave pen and then on the slave ship in Virginia. At the end of October. And within a week, they come to trust one another and off to risk their lives on this venture. That's incredible.”

This is not something the white crew was expecting. Otherwise the ship’s captain, Robert Ensor, would have never brought his family along. In an article Johnson wrote about the incident, he writes:

For what else to call the oblivious confidence with which a man like Ensor brought a fifteen month old child aboard a slave ship. And an aspect of the property he held in his own slaves produced whiteness. A certainty born of history that events would break in his favor. That all would be well.

“And yet he's willing to lie to himself and say this is going to go all right,” says Johnson.  “Just like it always has been before. And it doesn't. It doesn't go all right.”

For the slave traders, at least. After months of depositions, insurance claims, and detention in jail, all the slaves, including the 19 rebels, were offered freedom. According to Johnson, ignorance and denial on behalf of the whites on board is what made something like this possible. They chose not to see that this "cargo" was capable not only of organization, but heroism. He says it all goes back to when the slave trader, William Merritt, first discovered one of his previously obedient slaves out of the hold.

“That moment seems be an extraordinary moment. This man Merritt, who thought that he was in one kind of history, is forced to confront the idea of the fact that something doesn't make sense. Something's happening that he doesn't understand. He says "but you're the last person I would expect to be out of order on the ship." And then it gradually dawned on him, and he starts to run. And that seems to me to be a moment, and a sense of possibility and danger that it's really worth us trying to imagine and capture.”

This boatwide emancipation was celebrated by abolitionists, and used in efforts to close the U.S. domestic slave trade. New Orleans was the main engine of that trade, and continued to profit from the trade for another 20 years. And although the story of the Brig Creole does not end in New Orleans, it was meant to, and shows the city’s prominent role within an Atlantic world full of slavery and revolution. Talk about rocking the boat…

This story is part of TriPod: New Orleans at 300. Tripod moves beyond the familiar themes of New Orleans history to focus on forgotten, neglected, or surprising pieces of the city's past to help us better understand present and future challenges. This story visits physical landmarks that bear witness to the city’s role in the national slave trade.

There are some hotels in the French Quarter and Central Business District that have rooftop pools. If you do know this, you do one of two things: you recognize that you’re not a guest at that hotel, and you do not go swimming in that pool. Or, you realize that it’s not difficult to walk through the lobby, take the elevator to the roof, and spend the day poolside, free of charge.

A lot of people choose option B, and they do it at the Omni Orleans on Chartres and St. Louis streets. But what these people might not know is that before the Omni Hotel, there was the St. Louis Hotel. And slaves were sold there.

Historic New Orleans Collection historian and curator Erin Greenwald stands in front of the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, which was constructed in the 1950s. “This site has the longest lineage in the history of the domestic slave trade here in New Orleans,” she says. “People were bought and sold under the domed rotunda of a fabulously decked out hotel. There wasn’t anywhere else in the country where human beings were bought and sold in such luxurious environs.”

Greenwald’s talking about the domestic slave trade, meaning the sales and movements of peoples within the borders of the United States.

In 1808, the federal government ended the transatlantic and international slave trade, which meant no more shipments of the enslaved from the Caribbean or Africa. Just a few years before that, the Louisiana Purchase opened up all this new land. So as the international slave trade is abolished, there is simultaneously a huge demand for labor in the Deep South.

“When this 1808 law passes, you start seeing this stream, and then outpouring, of people being forcibly moved from the upper to the lower South” explains Greenwald. “And New Orleans becomes the nexus of that trade. It’s the largest slave market in America during the antebellum period.”

Close to a million people make up this forced migration that occurred within the U.S. in the first half of the 19th Century. They came down south by boat, by rail, by stagecoach, and the most unfortunate marched for months from Virginia down the Natchez Trace. The impact goes way beyond those who were bought and sold. Greenwald gives the example of a single slave ship.

“You have 110 people on a ship coming from Baltimore whose lives are forever changed. And then consider all of the people related to those 110 who were left behind. The slave trade caught a lot of people up in its web and that web destroyed tens of thousands of people's lives and communities.”

Once they arrived in New Orleans, many that came by boat were sold before even walking off the deck of the ship. But most people were brought to what’s called a slave pen. In 1829, it became illegal for slave traders to house slaves in the French Quarter. So these pens popped up on the borders.

On the corner of Chartres Street and Esplanade Avenue there now sits a residential home built well after the Civil War. But this site was a slave pen, with a showroom, like an auto dealership, and a yard where enslaved people would sleep, exercise and cook.

These pens were basically jails. And the eating well and physical activity was all so that the traders could sell their property -- humans -- at the highest possible profit. Greenwald walks through the process of a sale.

“A planter comes in with a shopping list, meets with the trader, and then has the individuals line up. And the planter would come and inspect and question the individuals that were prospective purchases.” 

There is no plaque on the wall that surrounds this private property. There are historic plaques around the city, like the one on Press Street that honors where Homer Plessy walked into the "whites-only" train car, for example. Or the one that commemorates the St. Charles Streetcar line in Lee Circle. Well, there are 52 places in New Orleans where slaves were sold. And of those 52, there are only two signs in the city of New Orleans that deal with the slave trade.

“The official signage is on West Bank of the Mississippi River in today’s Algiers Point along the levee, and it recognizes that location’s role in transatlantic slave trade” says Greenwald. “On this side of the river there’s one plaque. It’s on Maspero’s Restaurant, across street from the St. Louis Hotel, and claims to be the site of Maspero’s Exchange. That is not correct!”

The sign claims that Maspero’s Restaurant was the site of Maspero’s Exchange, but that was actually across the street, where the St. Louis Hotel is. So of the 52 sites on the East Bank, only one is marked. And it’s wrong.

The house on the corner of Esplanade Ave. and Chartres St. is a private residence. But Greenwald says there are many options for marking things. “There are plenty of signs in other areas of the city that are private residences that deal with topics that are easier to digest. When you look at the map of this area, this whole block was home to slave traders and slave pen. So if the city was interested in marking that trade, they certainly could put something in the neutral ground here on Esplanade Avenue.”

And yet, there is no such sign.

“It’s much easier for people to get behind celebratory history than to get behind this dark and extremely painful history,” she says.

A few museums have popped up, like the Whitney Plantation, devoted entirely to slavery in the U.S. South. And there are civil rights museums around the country. But there’s a difference between experiencing a public marker and a museum. One’s voluntary.

The only people that are seeing what is in the civil rights museum are the people going to the civil rights museum, as opposed to the tourist from Alabama, say, who’s walking through the French Quarter.

Greenwald says even places that do give guided tours are leaving this stuff out. “This is something that should happen. We should be recognizing all of our history and not simply the parts that look nice for tourists. This is who we are.”

Imagine a plaque outside The Omni Hotel, acknowledging the history of slave auctions on site, and whether locals would still sneak in to take a dip. If there were 50 other plaques downtown to mark these places of the slave trade, imagine what else we might think about.

1619 was the year the first Africans arrived on the North American continent. There were at least 20 of them and they came as slaves from Angola. But what’s often overlooked is the culture they brought with them. Many were Christians with European names like Jean Pedro and Angela, and some came from cities. Scholars Linda Heywood and John Thornton discuss the lives of these first Africans. Also featured: When we think of colonial American essayists, New Englanders like Cotton Mather and Ben Franklin come to mind. But recently discovered essays by an anonymous writer who called himself “The Humourist” are now being hailed as some of the best in America’s colonial period. Brent Kendrick thinks he’s discovered the real identity of their author.

Cassandra Newby-Alexander explores how we should commemorate that history and what’s at stake when we ignore it. And: Richard Chew explains how a British king’s fear of being beheaded impacted the expansion of slavery in the US colonies.

Later in the show: Plantations in America’s South are physical testaments to the great wealth accrued through slave labor. Stephen Hanna says plantation museums often gloss over that economic history in favor of more romanticized depictions of plantation life. Plus: There’s little historical evidence that African Americans supported the Confederate cause by becoming soldiers. Yet this myth of the “black Confederate” remains in circulation. Gabriel Reich studies the way collective memories of the Civil War are shaped and offers ways school curricula could address these problematic narratives.

Cassandra Newby-Alexander explores how we should commemorate that history and what’s at stake when we ignore it. And: Richard Chew explains how a British king’s fear of being beheaded impacted the expansion of slavery in the US colonies.

Later in the show: Plantations in America’s South are physical testaments to the great wealth accrued through slave labor. Stephen Hanna says plantation museums often gloss over that economic history in favor of more romanticized depictions of plantation life. Plus: There’s little historical evidence that African Americans supported the Confederate cause by becoming soldiers. Yet this myth of the “black Confederate” remains in circulation. Gabriel Reich studies the way collective memories of the Civil War are shaped and offers ways school curricula could address these problematic narratives.

A documentary from 1962 about Martin Luther King Jr. It presents a compelling portrait of a young Baptist preacher who was determined to change the world through non-violent tactics. This is the first of six programs that reflect on Dr. King's legacy.

The growth of extreme religious and political groups such as the Black Muslims and the African Nationalist Movement were the first steps in this revolution. Clarke spoke to Malcolm X, the fiery spokesman for the Black Muslims, who presented arguments in favour of separation. Bonus Feature!  Also look for our special bonus - 'Harlem In Revolt - Part#3' the raw unedited version of Austin Clarke's interview with Malcolm X.

1963 was a time of social upheaval. It was the summer of Martin Luther's King Jr's March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was there that King delivered his 'I Have a Dream' Speech. 1963 was also the summer of the Birmingham riots with police dogs and water cannons being used on black citizens who were demonstrating in the streets.

It was in the midst of this historic period that Austin Clarke went to Harlem for CBC Radio. Austin Clarke has gone on to become a prominent and award winning writer, but at the time he was a young journalist with a story to tell. You'll hear his passion and his deft writing and interviewing skills.

James Hicks and Richard B. Moore
One of the people Clarke interviews was James Hicks, the editor of The New York Amsterdam News. It's America's oldest black newspaper situated in the heart of Harlem. Hicks talked about the role of black newspapers during these troubled times. Hicks' prediction about the effect of a racial clash in Harlem was prophetic. Less than a year later, the Harlem Riots of 1964 lasted six nights, left one person dead and more than a hundred injured. There were also riots in more than a dozen other American cities.

Clark also spoke with Richard B. Moore, a prominent civil rights activist and communist who lived in Harlem in New York City. Moore strongly advocated against using the word Negro because he said it was associated with the slave trade. 

Malcolm X
1963 was a pivotal year in the history of American civil rights.  Early in 1963 Martin Luther King was jailed for taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama.  Later that year he led his March on Washington. 

President John F. Kennedy delivered a civil rights address that called for an end to segregation. In St. Augustine Florida, four black teenagers were jailed for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter. In Birmingham Alabama the Ku Klux Klan bombed a black church that killed four children.

1963 was also a time of rising influence for the young black leader named Malcolm X.  He was a member and leader of the Nation of Islam, a religious and political group which believed in a separate state for African-Americans. 

CBC Radio's Austin Clarke managed to get an interview with Malcolm X for this documentary. Over fifty years later it stands as an important record.  Shortly after this interview, the black leader left the Nation of Islam.  Less than a year after that, he was assassinated.

Clarke worked hard to track down Malcolm X. Clarke is quoted as saying "This interview was the fruitful result of two weeks spent tracking down Malcolm X in Harlem: at the Muslim Restaurant, at Muhammad Speaks (the Muslims' newspaper office), and in bars and restaurants, where I asked if anyone had seen Malcolm X.  And then he called. My reward was an hour of his time. His time was golden.  He was a very busy man and this was the first radio interview in my life. I was terrified by the obvious importance of the interview, and more scared when Malcolm X, agreed to the interview..."

Assassination of Malcolm X
In the months after this interview Malcolm X severed his ties with the Nation of Islam and became a Sunni Muslim. He also regretted some of the views he had espoused while he was with the Nation of Islam, saying: "I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then ... pointed in a certain direction and told to march". Many Nation of Islam members considered him a traitor. In February 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated in New York by members of the Nation of Islam.

Austin Clarke
Austin Clarke continues his career as a writer and has published over twenty books of novels, short stories and memoirs. Recounting that interview with Malcolm X, Austin Clarke commented that after it aired on CBC Radio, "I would say my life was made."

Part three of this documentary is the full unedited conversation between Malcolm X and Austin Clarke. It's narrated by CBC Radio host Michael Enright. 

In 1883 a young African American worker was alleged to have brushed shoulders with a white woman as they passed each other on a narrow sidewalk in Danville, Virginia. A race riot erupted and Jane Dailey  says the white supremacist backlash that followed led to the disenfranchisement of Black Virginians for nearly 100 years. And: Jeff McClurken discusses the life of a Danville industrialist and former Confederate soldier, William T. Sutherlin, who led a skewed Congressional investigation into the 1883 riot.
Later in the show: Tom Costa connects the dots between the Danville riots and the codification of Jim Crow laws in Virginia’s 1902 Constitution. 

TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with an hour-long special that explores two places linked in history. called “Haiti and New Orleans: Is the Feeling Mutual?”

In 1972, I knew Arthur Earl Hutchinson as an eighth grader, full of beans. In 2000 he was shot by a Chicago policeman and killed. At the time he was described as homeless. I wanted to go back and try and find out what happened to him in the thirty three years since I had last seen him. This piece is a personal remembrance.
Featured on Transom.org. For more information and conversation, visit "The Mayor of Nichols" on Transom.

How do you maintain family traditions, or build new ones, after a divorce? Would an 8,000-piece jigsaw puzzle help? Michelle Orange thinks so. In fact, she'd even go 12,500. This lovely and unconventional radio telling is about Michelle and her father, about tradition and habit, obsession and commitment, and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and the Garden of Earthly Delights. Featured on Transom.org. For more information and conversation, visit the "Of A Piece" on Transom.

This fall marks the anniversary of one of the least known and yet most significant social experiments in American history. In September, 1854, the first "orphan train" carried 46 homeless children from New York City to far off homes to become laborers in the pioneer West. It was the first step in what was to become the emigration of as many as 250,000 orphan children to new homes throughout the entire United States. Widely duplicated throughout its 75 year history, the original orphan train was the creation and life project of the now forgotten man who was to become the father of American child welfare policy. Some of the most famous orphan train riders included songwriter Eden Ahbez, author of the Nat King Cole classic "Nature Boy," as well as John Brady, a governor of Alaska and Andrew Burke, second governor of North Dakota. More than 150 years after the first orphan train, the remaining riders are scattered across the country, and their descendants live in communities like yours. This new unnarrated one hour documentary features interviews from surviving orphan train riders as well as readings from period newspapers, letters and journals. The show is laced with an eclectic mix of traditional folk, classical and impressionist music. A 25-minute version of the show will air on "Soundprint" on Dec. 10, 2004.

Midway through the year, Adam and Josh run down their lists for the best films of 2019 (so far).

In 2002, Steven was diagnosed with gastroparesis, a debilitating illness that is a partial paralysis of the stomach. On any given day, Steven has no idea whether or not his body will digest his food or if he'll be vomiting for the entire day. This has completely altered his life - he can no longer work - this after a hardcore military life where he was a sniper, paratrooper and counter narcotics officer. He has been in the hospital over 84 times, had 4 heart attacks, 7 kidney failures and 13 surgeries.

Admitting to some exceptionally low times in life and contemplating suicide, Steven adopted Djaingo, an Australian cattle dog slated to be euthanized the next day. Djaingo went from being a fearful and aggressive dog deemed untrainable, to a sweet, loving and highly trained dog. You may have seen Djaingo saying grace on YouTube - www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN5Ype29zuM - the video sensation that has been viewed over 7 million times and featured on Jay Leno, David Letterman, CNN and Fox.

Steven takes us through the illness, how he's affected by it, and how he spends his time. He tells us about Djaingo and his transformation, how Djaingo alerts the neighbors when Steven needs medical help, and how he has gotten past those low, low points when he no longer wanted to exist.