Radio Diaries

When we first met Majd Abdulghani, she was a teenager living in Saudi Arabia, one of the most restrictive countries for women in the world. She wanted to be a scientist, her family wanted to arrange her marriage. Majd recorded her life over two years, she was one of our most prolific documentarians. With her microphone, Majd brought us inside a society where the voices of women were rarely heard. Majd is 27 now. A lot has changed in her life. Today, we bring you a brand new conversation with Majd and her original story from 2016. **** Today’s episode has support from GreenChef. Get $130 off when you use code diaries130 at check out.

A journey back to the very beginning of recorded sound and the strange, random, beautiful things people captured more than a century ago. We recommend listening with headphones. On January 1st, 2022 all audio recorded before 1923 is entering the public domain because of a new law, the Music Modernization Act. Archivists around the country have been digitizing thousands of old records, tinfoil, and wax cylinders that few people have ever heard. We hear one of the first recordings ever made, dated 1853. We then visit with Thomas Edison and his phonograph invention, which etched sound into tinfoil. There are amateur home and field recordings, instructional tapes, and commercial music. And then there’s Lionel Mapleson, the grandfather of bootlegging, who spent years recording the Metropolitan Opera from every possible vantage point. Today’s episode is a collaboration with Sam Harnett and Chris Hoff of The World According to Sound. A live audio show and online listening series. Their next performance is January 6, grab your ticket today.

A new movie version of West Side Story is hitting theaters this week. The musical, which tells a story of romance and rivalry between white and Puerto Rican gangs in New York City, first opened on Broadway in 1957. The story of warring youth gangs turned out to be prophetic. Just a month before the musical opened, the city was stunned by the brutal murder of a teenager from Washington Heights named Michael Farmer. Today on the podcast, a real life West Side Story. This story originally aired on NPR in 2007. *** Support Radio Diaries as part of our year-end fundraiser! We’re an independent nonprofit organization, and your donation helps us tell great stories and supports our growing team of producers. All donations are tax deductible. Donate by December 31st: https://www.radiodiaries.org/donate/

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. On that day 85 years ago, Pablo Casals and Robert Johnson both made recordings that would change music history. This episode originally aired on NPR in 2011.

Every day, we go about our lives doing thousands of routine, mundane tasks. And sometimes, we make mistakes. Human error. It happens all the time. It just doesn’t always happen in a nuclear missile silo. This story was produced in collaboration with This American Life.

In the first half of the 20th century, the disease known as poliomyelitis panicked Americans. Just like COVID today, polio stopped ordinary life in its tracks. Tens of thousands were paralyzed when the virus attacked their nervous systems. Many were left unable to walk. In the worst cases, people’s breathing muscles stopped working, and they were placed in an iron lung, a large machine that fit their entire bodies from the neck down. Vaccines brought an end to the epidemic in the 1950s, and gradually, iron lungs became obsolete. The last ones were manufactured in the late ‘60s. Today, there are two people in America who still use an iron lung. One of them is Martha Lillard. This is her story. *** This story has support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and listeners like you. Music from Blue Dot Sessions, Epidemic Sounds, and the song “Iron Lung” by Taylor Phelan and the Canes. This week’s sponsors include Uncommon Good, go to uncommongoods.com/diaries for 15% off.

Ever since Texas became a state, the Rio Grande has been the border between the U.S. and Mexico. But rivers can move — and that’s exactly what happened in 1864, when torrential rains caused it to jump its banks and go south. Suddenly the border was in a different place, and Texas had gained 700 acres of land called the Chamizal, named after a plant that grew in the area. The Chamizal was a thorn in the side of U.S.–Mexico relations for a century until Sept. 25, 1964, when the U.S. finally gave part of the land back to Mexico. But by that time, roughly 5,000 people had moved to the area and made it their home. This is their story. ***** This story was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and listeners like you. To support our work, go to www.radiodiaries.org/donate. This episode has support from Article Furniture. Get $50 your first purchase of $100 or more by going to www.article.com/diaries.

Asa Carter and Forrest Carter couldn’t have been more different. But they shared a secret. The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter, is an iconic best-selling book, with a message about living in harmony with nature, and compassion for people of all kinds. But the story behind the book is very different. It begins with the most infamous racist political speech in American history. This week on the podcast, the true story of the untrue story of The Education of Little Tree. This story originally aired on This American Life in 2014.

On the 20th anniversary of September 11th, 2001, we’re bringing you a story about the World Trade Center. But it isn’t about the attacks, or about everything that came after. Instead, it’s about what came before 9/11. A century ago, before the twin towers were built, the neighborhood now known as Ground Zero was home to the largest collection of radio and electronics stores in the world. Back then, it was known as Radio Row.

Decades before our current debate over critical race theory, the 1968 Kerner Report pointed the finger at structural racism for creating the conditions that had triggered a series of protests in Black communities across the United States in the summer of 1967. Former Senator Fred Harris is the last surviving member of the Kerner Commission, a group appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the protests and author the report. This story is a part of our Last Witness series, audio portraits of the last surviving witnesses to major historical events. **** Radio Diaries is a small non-profit organization. We make this show with support from listeners like you. You can hear all our stories, sign up for our newsletter, and donate on our website www.radiodiaries.org.

During the war in Vietnam, there was a notorious American military prison on the outskirts of Saigon, called Long Binh Jail. But LBJ wasn’t for captured enemy fighters. It was for American soldiers. These were men who had broken military law, and there were a lot of them. As the unpopular war dragged on, discipline frayed and soldiers started to rebel. Some were there for serious crimes, others for small stuff, like refusing to get a haircut. By the summer of 1968, LBJ had become extremely overcrowded. Originally built to house 400 inmates, it became crammed with over 700 men. On August 29th, 1968, the situation erupted. This episode originally aired on NPR in 2018.

This is the story of a song, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down.” It was written by a 12-year-old boy on what was supposed to be his deathbed. But the boy didn’t die. Instead, he went on to become a Pentecostal preacher, and later helped inspire the birth of Rock & Roll. The boy’s name was Brother Claude Ely, and he was known as The Gospel Ranger. Also, we remember Joe Newman from our Hunker Down Diaries series, who passed away this week at 108 years old. *** This episode has support from Article Furniture. Get $50 off your first order of $100 or more by visiting article.com/diaries.

One hundred years ago, in 1921, a man named Harry Pace started the first major Black-owned record company in the United States. He called it Black Swan Records. In an era when few Black musicians were recorded, the company was revolutionary. It launched the careers of Ethel Waters, Fletcher Henderson, William Grant Still, Alberta Hunter and other influential artists who transformed American music. But Black Swan’s success would be short-lived. Just a couple years after Pace founded the company, larger, wealthier, white competitors started to take an interest in the artists whose careers Pace had propelled. Then, Pace’s own life took a mysterious turn. **** This episode of Radio Diaries has support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Lily Auchincloss Foundation. We are a proud member of Radiotopia, a network of creators who are able to follow their curiosity and tell the stories they care about the most. Show your support for Radiotopia during our Spring Fundraiser. Donate today at https://on.prx.org/3wl9pWn.

Twenty-five years ago, Josh Cutler was a 16-year old living with Tourette’s Syndrome, a brain disorder that often causes physical and verbal tics. For several months, he recorded cassette tapes of everything from conversations with his parents and classmates, to prank calls. This is his diary, which chronicles his attempts to live a normal teenage life with a brain that often betrays him. Josh’s diary first aired as part of the Teenage Diaries series on NPR in 1996. **** Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, a network of creators who are able to follow their curiosity and tell the stories they care about the most. Show your support for Radiotopia during our Spring Fundraiser. Donate today at https://on.prx.org/3wl9pWn.

On May 31, 1921, white mobs attacked a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as “Black Wall Street.” As many as three hundred people were killed, and more than a thousand homes and businesses were destroyed. Olivia Hooker was six years old at the time. She remembers watching white men with torches come through her family’s backyard, and hiding under a table with her siblings. Radio Diaries interviewed Olivia Hooker about the massacre in 2018. Six months later, she passed away at age 103. Today, to mark the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, we revisit our interview with Olivia Hooker and speak with Kavin Ross about why the story of the massacre was buried for decades. **** Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, a network of creators who are able to follow their curiosity and tell the stories they care about the most. Show your support for Radiotopia during our Spring Fundraiser. Donate today at https://on.prx.org/3wl9pWn.