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Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

First-person diaries, sound portraits, and hidden chapters of history from Peabody Award-winning producer Joe Richman and the Radio Diaries team. From teenagers to octogenarians, prisoners to prison guards, bra saleswomen to lighthouse keepers. The extraordinary stories of ordinary life. Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX. Learn more at radiotopia.fm

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

16:23

Last Man on the Mountain – Updated

Radio Diaries ·

2014/12/11

A few years ago, we produced a story about the greatest underdog we’d ever met: Jimmy Weekley. Jimmy was the last remaining resident of Pigeonroost Hollow, West Virginia. Jimmy spent most of the last two decades fighting one of the largest coal companies in the country in an attempt to save his hometown. He said he was born in Pigeonroost Hollow, and he planned to die there. This year, he did. He was 74. Today on the Radio Diaries Podcast, we’re remembering Jimmy Weekley, The Last Man on

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20:07

Busman’s Holiday

Radio Diaries ·

2014/11/13

The story of William Cimillo, a New York City bus driver who snapped one day in 1947, left his regular route in the Bronx, and drove his municipal bus down to Florida.

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34:12

Weasel’s Diary, Revisited

Radio Diaries ·

2014/11/07

Jose William Huezo Soriano – aka Weasel – is a 26-year-old Los Angeles resident who gets deported to his parents’ home country of El Salvador, which he has not seen since the age of five. In this episode, you’ll hear Weasel’s original audio diary, as well as an update from Weasel in which he talks about his life over the past 15 years.

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16:24

When Ground Zero was Radio Row

Radio Diaries ·

2014/10/17

For more than four decades, the area around Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan was the largest collection of radio and electronics stores in the world. Then in 1966 the stores were bulldozed to make way for the new World Trade Center.

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15:55

When Borders Move

Radio Diaries ·

2014/10/06

What happens when, instead of people crossing the border, the border crosses the people? In this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, two stories from the U.S.-Mexico border.

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14:42

Working, Then and Now

Radio Diaries ·

2014/09/01

In the early 1970s, radio host and oral historian Studs Terkel went around the country, tape recorder in hand, interviewing people about their jobs. Studs collected more than 130 interviews, and the result was a book called “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.” And – something unprecedented for an oral history collection – it became a bestseller. In this episode of The Radio Diaries Podcast, we bring you two of the lost interviews that never

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17:05

Strange Fruit – Voices of a Lynching

Radio Diaries ·

2014/08/25

The images coming out of Ferguson, MO this summer have reminded us of another upsetting image of race in America. It’s a photograph that was taken just a few hours from Ferguson, but eight decades ago…and it inspired the Billie Holiday song, Strange Fruit. Listen to our story (and be advised that it is disturbing.)

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17:11

The Gospel Ranger

Radio Diaries ·

2014/07/17

This is the story of a song, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down,” written by a 12-year-old boy on his deathbed. A boy who – instead of dying – went on to become a Pentecostal preacher. A boy who would later help inspire the birth of Rock & Roll. His name was Brother Claude Ely…and he was known as The Gospel Ranger.

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21:32

“Halfrican” Revisited

Radio Diaries ·

2014/06/23

When Jeff Rogers was 16 years old he started referring to himself as a “halfrican.” Jeff has a black father and a white mother. And like many teenagers, he was trying to figure out who he was. We met Jeff back in 1998, and gave him a tape recorder so he could document his life for our Teenage Diaries series. We started thinking about Jeff when we produced our Teenage Diaries Revisited series last year for NPR. On today’s show, Jeff’s original teenage diary, plus…a conversation we recently

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14:57

Walter the Seltzerman – It’s Not Easy Being Last

Radio Diaries ·

2014/06/02

Back in 1919, Walter Backerman’s grandfather delivered seltzer by horse and wagon on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Today, Walter continues to deliver seltzer around the streets of New York. Some customers, like Mildred Blitz, have been on the family route for more than 50 years. When Walter’s grandfather drove his cart there were thousands of seltzer men in the city; today Walter is one of the last.

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02:30

Video Podcast: Help Kickstart Our New Season

Radio Diaries ·

2014/05/28

Check out our Kickstarter video. (Ira Glass has a cameo!) If we reach our goal, we will bring you a new season of Radio Diaries starting in September 2014. We’ll also be putting out the Radio Diaries Podcast twice as often. Biweekly! bit.ly/RDKickstarter

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18:19

The Long Shadow of Forrest Carter

Radio Diaries ·

2014/05/12

Asa Carter was a speechwriter for Alabama Governor George Wallace. He penned one of the most infamous speeches of the era… Wallace’s Segregation Now, Segregation Forever address. Forrest Carter was a Cherokee writer who grew up in Tennessee. His autobiography, The Education of Little Tree, is a beloved classic that has sold millions of copies around the world. But these two men shared a secret.

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19:50

The Day Nelson Mandela Became Nelson Mandela

Radio Diaries ·

2014/04/20

The moment Nelson Mandela really became Nelson Mandela was on April 20th, 1964 – fifty years ago today. It happened when he stood up in a stuffy South African courtroom and gave a speech. 50 years is a long time. It’s long enough for things to become history. Long enough that people start to be forgotten, stories get smoothed over, narratives get hardened in stone. That’s what happened this past December with the death of Nelson Mandela. His life story was written… in sharpie.

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32:21

Frankie’s Teenage Diary, Revisited

Radio Diaries ·

2014/03/20

As a teenager, Frankie Lewchuck recorded an audio diary about his family in rural Alabama. 16 years later, he recorded a follow up story for the Teenage Diaries Revisited series: “I went from being on the front page for football, representing my itty-bitty school, to being on the front page as a thief and a meth head.” A lot of life happens in 16 years.

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30:40

Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair

Radio Diaries ·

2014/02/18

On the night of May 7th, 1951, in the small town of Laurel, Mississippi, close to a thousand people gathered around the courthouse. They came to witness an execution. Willie McGee was a young black man who had been accused of raping a white woman… and sentenced to death. Six decades later, Bridgette McGee teamed up with Radio Diaries to find the truth about what happened to her grandfather.

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58:48

Teenage Diaries Revisited 1-Hour Special

Radio Diaries ·

2014/01/13

Back in the 1990s, Radio Diaries producer Joe Richman gave tape recorders to a handful of teens and asked them to report on their own lives. Now, 16 years later, Joe checks back in with them.

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17:10

A Guitar, A Cello, and the Day that Changed Music

Radio Diaries ·

2013/12/20

What would it sound like if one of the world’s greatest classical cellists, and the most legendary blues guitarist of all time…jammed together?

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01:01:05

Mandela: An Audio History

Radio Diaries ·

2013/12/05

An award-winning radio series documenting the struggle against apartheid through intimate first-person accounts of Nelson Mandela himself, as well as those who fought with him, and against him. Hosted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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17:15

The Last Man on the Mountain

Radio Diaries ·

2013/11/14

In the 1990s, Arch Coal began mountaintop removal mining in a corner of West Virginia called Pigeonroost Hollow. There used to be dozens of houses in the area, but now there is just one. It belongs to Jimmy Weekley.

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16:39

The View From the 79th Floor

Radio Diaries ·

2013/10/16

On July 28, 1945 an army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. Stories from the day a plane crashed into the Empire State Building.

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265 results

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