Walter Edgar's Journal show

Walter Edgar's Journal

Summary: From books to barbecue, and current events to Colonial history, historian and author Walter Edgar delves into the arts, culture, and history of South Carolina and the American South. Produced by South Carolina Public Radio.

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Podcasts:

 How the Blinding of Sergeant Isaac Woodard Changed the Course of America’s Civil Rights History | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

(Originally broadcast on 03/08/19) - On February 12, 1946, Sergeant Isaac Woodard, a returning, decorated African American veteran of World War II, was removed from a Greyhound bus in Batesburg, South Carolina, after he challenged the bus driver’s disrespectful treatment of him. Woodard, in uniform, was arrested by the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, and beaten and blinded while in custody. President Harry Truman was outraged by the incident. He established the first presidential commission

 Remembering Cokie Roberts | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3089

Veteran journalist Cokie Roberts has died at age 75. Roberts joined NPR in 1978, the start of a remarkable career that led her to ABC News in 1988, though she remained on NPR as a commentator until her death. Roberts died Tuesday due to complications from breast cancer, according to a family statement. Walter Edgar interviewed Roberts during a 2004 book tour promoting her book, Founding Mothers , when she made a stop at Litchfield Books.

 The Last At-Bat of Shoeless Joe | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

In his new novel, The Last At-Bat of Shoeless Joe (2019, Chickadee Prince), Granville Wyche Burgess imagines Shoeless Joe Jackson, the outfielder disgraced in the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, living in Greenville, South Carolina, and finding that sports history has one more twist in store for him. New York Post baseball columnist Ken Davidoff writes, “ The Last At-Bat of Shoeless Joe brilliantly bakes wish fulfillment into a period piece. A gripping story that is both illuminating and emotional, it

 Remembering Hurricane Hugo | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

Thirty years ago this month, the strongest and most costly hurricane to strike South Carolina in the 20 th century made landfall. Hurricane Hugo was a Category 4 storm when it came ashore just slightly north of Charleston, on Isle of Palms on September 22. The hurricane had 140 mph sustained winds, with gusts to more than 160 mph and brought a storm surge of over 20 feet to McClellanville, SC. Thirty-five people lost their lives to the storm and its aftermath in South Carolina. Damage from Hugo

 Remembering Dorothea Benton Frank | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 899

On Monday, September 2, 2019, South Carolina lost a beloved author. Dorothea Benton Frank, author of 20 best-selling novels set in the Lowcountry, died at the age of 67 after a brief illness . We’d like to share with you an excerpt of Dottie Frank’s last visit with us at Walter Edgar's Journal , broadcast August 14, 2015. Listen to Dorothea Benton Frank's first appearance on Walter Edgar's Journal

 A Journey of Rediscovery: Retracing the Route of John Lawson's 1700 Expedition in Carolina | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

(Originally broadcast 03/29/19) - In 1700, a young man named John Lawson left London and landed in Charleston, South Carolina, hoping to make a name for himself. For reasons unknown, he soon undertook a two-month journey through the still-mysterious Carolina backcountry. His travels yielded A New Voyage to Carolina in 1709, one of the most significant early American travel narratives, rich with observations about the region's environment and Indigenous people. Lawson later helped found North

 Radio's Golden Age | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

(Originally broadcast 05/03/19) - The term "Old Time Radio" often refers to the programming and performers of a “golden age” in the medium, beginning after World War I and lasting well into the 1950s. Guest Bill Owen joins Walter Edgar to talk about this golden age on this week’s program. Owen is a writer and a retired radio/television announcer now living in Greenville, SC, whose career spans six decades. His has written or co-authored several books, including Radio's Golden Age: The Programs

 The Return of Hemp | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

(Originally broadcast 04/19/18) - Hemp was once one of the crops grown in South Carolina and exported to the world. That changed, however, when enforcement of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 effectively made possession or transfer of hemp illegal throughout the United States under federal law, excluding medical and industrial uses, through imposition of an excise tax on all sales of hemp. In 2018 thing changed again: Congress moved to legalize and encourage the growth of industrial hemp. Speaking

 Dawson's Fall | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

In Dawson’s Fall (2019, MacMillan) novelist Roxana Robinson tells a story of America at its most fragile, fraught, and malleable. Set in 1889, in Charleston, South Carolina, Robinson’s tale weaves her family’s journal entries and letters with a novelist’s narrative grace, and spans the life of her tragic hero, Frank Dawson, as he attempts to navigate the country’s new political, social, and moral landscape.

 Community and Conservation - the History of South Caroliona's Coastal Conservation League | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

In their new book, A Wholly Admirable Thing ( 2018, Evening Post Books), Virginia and Dana Beach chronicle ten stories that showcase the rise of the Coastal Conservation League to one of the country’s most tenacious and innovative conservation groups. The book highlights transformational initiatives undertaken by the Conservation League over three decades in partnership with community activists up and down the South Carolina coast. Dana Beach joins Walter Edgar to talk about the history of the

 America's "South" of the Mind, 1960–1980 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

In his book, The South of the Mind: American Imaginings of White Southernness, 1960–1980 (2018, UGA Press), Zachary J. Lechner bridges the fields of southern studies and southern history in an effort to discern how conceptions of a tradition-bound, "timeless" South shaped Americans' views of themselves and their society's political and cultural fragmentations, following the turbulent 1960s. Lechner talks with Walter Edgar about the iconography of the white South during the civil rights movement;

 "They Stole Him Out of Jail" - Willie Earle, South Carolina’s Last Lynching Victim | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

Before daybreak on February 17, 1947, twenty-four-year-old Willie Earle, an African American man arrested for the murder of a Greenville, South Carolina, taxi driver named T. W. Brown, was abducted from his jail cell by a mob, and then beaten, stabbed, and shot to death. An investigation produced thirty-one suspects, most of them cabbies seeking revenge for one of their own. The police and FBI obtained twenty-six confessions. Remarkably, the names and photos of the defendents were published in a

 Chasing the Moon | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke joins documentary producer/director Robert Stone to talk with Walter Edgar about the Space Race of the 1960s, and about making the documentary Chasing the Moon. Chasing the Moon , the upcoming American Experience documentary (premieres July 8 on PBS), thoroughly reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation, upending much of the conventional mythology surrounding the effort. The three-part series recasts the Space Age as a fascinating stew of scientific

 Daniel Morgan: a Revolutionary Life | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

On January 17, 1781, at Cowpens, South Carolina, the notorious British cavalry officer Banastre Tarleton and his legion were destroyed along with the cream of Lord Cornwallis’s troops. The man who planned and executed this stunning American victory was Daniel Morgan. Once a barely literate backcountry laborer, Morgan now stood at the pinnacle of American martial success.

 Reclaiming a Lost Hero of World War II | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3113

In November 1943, Marine 1st Lt. Alexander Bonnyman, Jr. was mortally wounded while leading a successful assault on a critical Japanese fortification on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa, and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor. The brutal, bloody 76-hour battle would ultimately claim the lives of more than 1,100 Marines and 5,000 Japanese forces. But Bonnyman's remains, along with those of hundreds of other Marines, were hastily buried and lost to history

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