A New Life, Together

Sacred & Profane

2019 marks the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, when close to a million people were killed in one hundred days. UVA’s Larycia Hawkins sits down with Christophe Mbonyingabo, who’s been working to repair the rifts caused by the violence in his home country for over twenty years. He worried that after the genocide, Rwandans would learn to tolerate each other, but not truly forgive or trust one another. And so, he set out to see if it was possible to rebuild that trust — if perpetrators could look survivors in the eye and acknowledge what they had done, and if survivors could find a way to forgive.

Island of Immortals

BACKSTORY 

Angel Island lies in the San Francisco Bay, not far from its more famous cousin, Alcatraz. And, like Alcatraz, it’s close to the shore but surrounded by swift currents and cold water. That makes it easy to reach — and hard to escape.

More often, though, Angel Island is compared to an island on America’s other coast: Ellis Island. That’s because from 1910 to 1940, it was the site of a U.S. immigration station that processed more than a million travelers crossing the Pacific. A look at the poetry some of them left behind.

You Have the right to remain silent

BackSTory

When a man named Ernesto Miranda confessed to a rape and kidnapping on March 13, 1963, his trial went all the way to the Supreme Court becoming one of the most well-known cases of the 20th century: Miranda v Arizona. BackStory looks at the interrogation that led to the Supreme Court decision and ask how the Miranda warning transformed from technical bit of police procedure to pop-culture lexicon — and how pop culture may be keeping the legal decision alive.

What Fools THese Mortals Be!

BackSTory

THE STORY OF THE SATIRICAL ARMS RACE THAT SWAYED THE 1884 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION --  AND CHANGED THE FACE OF AMERICAN CARTOONS. 

The Sundance Kid

BACKSTORY 

BackStory producer Emily Gadek, back from the Sundance Film Festival, offers the Guys some advice on what historical films to watch out for this coming year. 

Straight to the Moon

BACKSTORY

Author Richard Jurek describes how one giant leap in public relations helped launch NASA’s lunar program - and how brands back on Earth capitalized on the moon missions. Read more here.

Little (Dead) Indians

BACKSTORY

Veronica Pasfield, a member of the Bay Mills Indian Community and American Studies scholar, shares her family’s experience seeing dioramas depicting native life at a local natural history museum.

Echoes of the Call

BACKSTORY

Sylviane Diouf of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture talks with Ed
Ayers about some of the overlooked legacies of enslaved Muslims in America, including the influence of Islamic music on the early blues. Produced with Nina Earnest.

Veteran reflects on a career shaped by 9/11

EIGHT FORTY-EIGHT, WBEZ/CHICAGO PULBIC MEDIA

One week before September 11, 2001, Nick Fox began his freshman year of college. He also signed a contract promising to join the army after graduation. He spent the next four years watching a war he would soon join. This story aired on WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. 

Justices on the move

LIFE OF THE LAW

It’s hard to imagine Supreme Court Justices working outside of Washington, D.C. But for the first half of our country’s history, they spent much of their time traveling as circuit court judges. And it may have made them better Supreme Court justices.

Finding poetry in the Kennedy assasination

EIGHT FORTY-EIGHT, WBEZ/CHICAGO PULBIC MEDIA

Author and poet Tony Trigilio shares his work Historic Diary,  a book of poetry inspired by Lee Harvey Oswald's  diary of his time in the USSR and Dallas. Produced for WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight. 

The dangerous mind of Sara Paretsky

EIGHT FORTY-EIGHT, WBEZ/CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA

Crime writer Sara Paretsky and her fictional detective protagonist, V.I. Warshawski, both call Chicago home. Like her detective creation, Paretsky spends a lot of time pounding the pavement; but she hunts for inspiration, not clues. Paretsky took Eight Forty-Eight host Alison Cuddy on a tour of some of the places in Chicago that inspire her work. Produced for WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight.

Neighborhood watches grow in Oakland

CROSSCURRENTS/KALW PUBLIC RADIO

Neighborhood watches have become a byword for civic mistrust and excessive force following the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Florida teenager. But in Oakland, neighborhood watches have been growing in neighborhoods across the city - and residents support that growth.