The Prologue

The Prologue

The story of Clyde Kennard, the first person to attempt desegregation at the University of Southern Mississippi.

The Prologue

Known as Arkansas’s “cemetery angel,” Ruth Coker Burks provided end-of-life care for patients with AIDS in Hot Springs during the height of the crisis and buried their remains in her family’s cemetery.

The Prologue

The 1898 Wilmington Massacre was a violent attack on the city's thriving African American community, one of a series of coups that took place after the Civil War. Through interviews with local historians, OA contributor KaToya Ellis Fleming investigates the backlash to Wilmington's Black leadership and the legacy of the Wilmington Massacre.

Photos of Alex Manly and the Daily Record staff courtesy Alex L. Manly Papers (#65), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, East Carolina University.

The Prologue

In this special episode, poet Tess Taylor reflects on the rich and naturalistic poetry of Virginian Anne Spencer. We're honored to partner with the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum, Inc. Archives on this segment, which marks the first time listeners can hear Anne Spencer's voice outside of the museum's archives. Spencer’s work offers glimpses into the warm refuge she cultivated for black writers and innovators in the South.

Magazine Feature

Julian Rankin, director of the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, visits the artist’s sacred place, an island off the coast of Mississippi, and meditates on the conditions that influenced Anderson’s art.

Read Julian Rankin’s essay “Sacred Place” from the Fall 2019 issue.

The Prologue

Texas journalist Michelle García investigates the history of the U.S.–Mexico border and the violent response to Black Lives Matter protests in the Rio Grande Valley.

Photo by Joe Yates via Unsplash

The Prologue

Ken Burns and Rhiannon Giddens discuss the legibility of African and African-American contributions to country music—from the Carter Family to Lil Nas X—and how that influence has been erased in the American consciousness.

Featuring Ken Burns, Rhiannon Giddens, and Julie Dunfey