Talking History

USA TODAY AWARD

Aural History Productions

Talking History, based at the University at Albany, State University of New York, is a production, distribution, and instructional center for all forms of "aural" history. Our mission is to provide teachers, students, researchers and the general public with as broad and outstanding a collection of audio documentaries, speeches, debates, oral histories, conference sessions, commentaries, archival audio sources, and other aural history resources as is available anywhere. We hope to expand our understanding of history by exploring the audio dimensions of our past, and we hope to enlarge the tools and venues of historical research and publication by promoting production of radio documentaries and other forms of aural history. In addition to our weekly radio program, we are engaged in numerous educational efforts, from running and sponsoring workshops to offering full-semester courses on radio production and oral history. Some of the most talented radio producers and engineers currently working in public and non-commercial radio now contribute to Talking History—both to our programming and to our educational efforts through production workshops. Here, you'll also find digital archives of their enormously creative and captivating works.

Our weekly broadcast/internet radio program, Talking History, focuses on all aspects of history. Follow the link to the left, "The Radio Show," for more information on the program and to access the live WWW broadcast.

Below you will find our latest archived shows; to enjoy more, make use of the pop-down menu to the left; it will give you access to our full radio archive.

July 17, 2008

Segment 1: Douglas Blackmon: Slavery by Another Name.
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:00.
In this edition of Building Bridges, Recorded on July 7, 2008, Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg speak with Douglas Blackmon, author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Blackmon discusses how his discovery of an unmarked African American burial ground on land owned by U.S. Steel led to his quest to explore the policies that were responsible for the Post-Reconstruction re-enslavement of Blacks.

Segments 2 and 3: The Poor People's Campaign of 1968."

The following segments come to us from the Pacifica Radio Archives and from the VaultFrom The Vault as part of their ongoing look at the many events of 1968 and their lasting impact. "In 1968, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was planning The Poor People’s March on Washington D.C. as part of the War on Poverty. Dr. King was adamant that the Poor People’s March and campaign did not focus just on poor African Americans but included poverty-stricken people without deference to race, creed or color. He planned to lobby congress for an Economic Bill of Rights which would include affordable housing and a guaranteed annual income for the poor of this country.

Dr. King would not live to see the March. But thanks to the efforts of the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who took over the leadership role of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and others such as Jesse Jackson, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, poor people from around the country began their trip to Washington, DC by any way they could manage. For most of these poor people, this trip was an enormous financial sacrifice, yet a necessary burden - they would hand-deliver their message to Washington. Some of this journey was recorded by Pacifica producer Arthur Alexander along the road from Memphis Tennessee to Washington DC.

Once in Washington DC, activists constructed an encampment on the Washington Mall dubbed Resurrection City. This was used as a base camp for strategy meetings, teach-ins and speeches. On May 13th, 1968, the first sojourners arrived at Resurrection City, and Pacifica producer Ellen Kohn was there to record the events as they unfolded and to interview those who were there. Kohn captured the opening ceremonies, where the new president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Abernathy - now dubbed ‘Mayor of Resurrection City’) delivered a moving address. But perhaps the most powerful moment of the campaign was when the Reverend Jesse Jackson lead residents of Resurrection Cityť in his call and response Anthem: I Am Somebody.

Mid-June of 1968 saw the population of Resurrection City peak at 50,000 people; but after heavy rains, dampened spirits, confused agendas and the assassination Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Resurrection City was closed on June 24th, 1968. Although the campaign is viewed as a failure, the experiences of those who took the journey– recorded, preserved, and made accessible by Pacifica Radio Archives — is critical to the dialog of race and poverty in America."

Segment 2: From the Archives -- The Reverend Ralph Abernathy at Resurrection City Opening Ceremonies.

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 17:15.

Segment 3: The People's Voices

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 41:36.

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July 10, 2008
Segments 1: "BackStory: Environmental Crises." (2008)
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 31:36.
Segment 2:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 18:54.
This week, we feature a segment from a new history call-in show titled "BackStory," featuring U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh. Each week, they explore a topic drawn from recent headlines -- probing its historical roots. In this segment they examine enviromental crises. Here is their description of the segment: "It seems that Americans are finally waking up to the reality of climate change, but scientists tell us it may be too little, too late. This may be the most far-reaching environmental threat Americans have ever faced, but it's certainly not the first. In this hour, we consider the history of American anxieties about the environment. Historian Bill Cronon weighs in on when 'nature' became a thing to protect and not to fear. And we travel up into Virginia's Shenandoah National Park to look for remnants of the communities that were displaced to make way for Nature. Also: calls that tackle Mother Nature's gender, Populist politics, and the merits of an apocalyptic mindset."

Segment 2: From the Archives: "W. E. B. Du Bois and the Origins of Pan Africanism." (1937).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 3:32.
Here is a short excerpt of a 1964 recording of W. E. B. Du Bois recalling his involvement with the establishment of the earliest Pan African Congresses in the post-World War I era. Recording date: 4-24-1964. For more information about W. E. B. Du Bois and Pan Africanism, see: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741500827/pan-africanism.html.

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July 3, 2008
Segments 1: "The Zeeland Flood of 1953." (2003)
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 29:14.
This documentary comes to us from Radio Netherlands. "For centuries, the Dutch have reclaimed land from the sea. But in February 1953, the sea tried to take back a huge portion from the province of Zeeland in the south of The Netherlands. The worst flood in centuries surprised residents in the middle of the night. Houses were swept out to sea; livestock and farmland were destroyed; and more than 1800 people lost their lives. This historic disaster is recreated with the eye-witness accounts of survivors and the on-scene reports of Radio Netherlands’ journalists who brought news of the tragedy to the world over fifty years ago." Produced in 2003.

Segment 2: From the Archives: "Father Charles Coughlin on the Christian Front and the Popular Front." (1937).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 24:10.
Father Charles Coughlin, known as "The Radio Priest," was a prominent voice on radio in the 1930s. First supportive of FDR and the New Deal and then turning against it, he promoted various conspiracy theories and was a rabid anti-semite and anti-Communist. Here, in this broadcast, we present an example of his anti-communist rhetoric. For a short biography of Coughlin, see: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcoughlinE.htm.

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June 26, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "The Carlin Case. (2008)."
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 39:29.
Real Media. MP3. Time: 17:38.
This production, featuring Tony Diaz and Kym King and produced by Ernesto Aguilar, utilizes audio from the Pacifica Radio Archives and other sources "to explore the so-called Carlin case, the context, the evolution of free speech and the generation that pushed its rights beyond the scope of what was conceivable back in Independence Hall."

Segment 2: From the Archives: "Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley (1964)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 5:27.
Mario Savio was one of the leaders of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement of 1965. This selection from one of his public addresses -- delivered at the Sproul Hall sit-in at The University of California at Berkeley on December 2, 1964 -- is perhaps the most famous of his speeches. For a transcription of the speech, see http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariosaviosproulhallsitin.htm.

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June 19, 2008
Segments 1 and 3: "An Interview with Jean Renoir (1960)."
Segment 1:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 25:45.
Segment 3:
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:50.
From From The Vault -- an exploration of the life and career of French film director Jean Renoir, in his own words. Renoir's "influence on the art of cinema is indisputable with iconic films as Rules of the Game (1939), Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), The River (1951) and his masterpiece Grand Illusion (1933), which was the first Foreign Language film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1960, Pacifica station WBAI producer Dale Minor sat down for a lengthy interview with an animated, opinionated and charming Jean Renoir." Also included are some comments from film critic Pauline Kael.

Segment 2: From the Archives: "The Souls of Black Folk: A Reading (1903; 2008)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 25:58.
"The Souls of Black Folk, written by W.E.B. Du Bois and published in 1903, is one of the most lyrical and pathbreaking explorations of race in America. Du Bois not only explored the sociological and cultural dimensions of black culture, but also took on Book T. Washington's notions of how best for blacks to advance in a white, Euro-American society. Our thanks to LibriVox.Org for making this and many more recordings of classic texts available to the general public.

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June 12, 2008
Segment 1: Emmanuel Okocha on the Biafran Secession of 1967 (2008).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 27:37.
Dialogue's George Liston Seay interviews Emmanuel Okocha, the author of Blood on the Niger: The First Black on Black Genocide. "The Biafran secession from Nigeria in 1967 unleashed one of Africa’s most brutal wars as the federal government quelled the rebellion. So savage were reprisals that many view the Nigerian response as a precursor of the genocidal tragedies in Rwanda and Darfur a generation later. Emmanuel Okocha, orphaned by the conflict, details the dreadful massacre of the village of Asaba during the Biafran War."

Segment 2: "Frank Zappa Takes on the PMRC" (1985).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 32:30.
In 1985, the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC), led by Tipper Gore, pressured both Congress and the record industry to adopt a music ratings system, similar to that already adopted by the film industry. On September 19th, 1995, in response to this pressure, the U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, held a hearing on the issue. Among those who testified were: Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, John Denver, and Frank Zappa. Today we present Zappa's testimony. For a transcript of Zappa's testimony, see: http://downlode.org/Etext/zappa.html. For a short biography of Zappa, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa.

Segment 3: "American Bloomsbury."

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 25:58.
Francesca Rheannon, producer of Writers Voice, talks with two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Lewis about his pithy and thought-provoking study of the evolution of the First Amendment, Freedom for the Thought that We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment (Basic Books, 2007).

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June 5, 2008
Segment 1: Tahima Anam on Bangladesh's Creation: A Golden Age (2008).
Real Media. MP3. Time: 26:55.
Dialogue's George Liston Seay interviews Tahima Anam, author of A Golden Age. "In 1971, East Pakistan rose in revolt against the oppressive regime that had, for so long, exploited its wealth and disdained its people. That regime was based in West Pakistan, the dominant portion of a political state whose physical entity was separated by a thousand miles of Indian territory. Like all wars this conflict was written in the blood of individuals. In her new book author of "A Golden Age" Tahmima Anam tells the story of Bangladesh's creation through the eyes of a courageous young widow."

Segment 2: From the Archives: Louisa May Alcott's Hospital Sketches (1863; Librivox, 2008)."
Real Media. MP3. Time: 24:14.
From LibriVox [www.librivox.org], here is a partial reading of the chapter three of Louisa May Alcott's Hospital Sketches (1863; expanded edition, 1869). Alcott, the Transcendentalist, abolitionist, and feminist author best known for her work Little Women (1868), served for around six weeks in a Union hospital in Georgetown, DC in the winter of 1862-63. She wrote extensive letters about her experiences there as a nurse and edited them together to produce Hospital Sketches in 1863. While in service, Louisa contracted typhoid fever and although she recovered after treatment with calomel (a drug heavily laden with mercury and used to cure typhoid), the heavy dosage of mercury she received in her treatment plagued her for the rest of her life. There are extensive WWW sites focusing on Alcott. For a good start, see: and for the full text of Hospital Sketches, see: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3837.

Segment 3: "American Bloomsbury."

Real Media.

MP3. Time: 27:36.
Francesca Rheannon, producer of Writers Voice, interviews author Susan Cheever about her book, American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, an examination of the intellectual life of a group of distinguished writers and thinkers whose lives revolved around Concord, MA. There the Transcendentalists "invented a new form of American literature that often came from the yearnings, erotic passions, and disappointments they so deeply felt. Cheever tells us about the ambivalent relationship between Emerson and Thoreau, how Nathanial Hawthorne turned his despair into THE SCARLET LETTER and why Louisa May Alcott began writing LITTLE WOMEN. The daughter of the American writer John Cheever, Susan Cheever is the also the author of the memoir AS GOOD AS I COULD BE, published in 2001, as well as numerous other books."

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