Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Life
Graphic
Listen

Featured story: The Gospel Ranger

Outside the Appalachian mountains, his name was barely known. But Claude Ely influenced some of the pioneers of rock & roll.

Graphic
Listen

Featured story: Mandela’s Election: 30 Years Later

Mandela was a lawyer, freedom fighter, leader of the African National Congress, and finally, president.

Graphic
Listen

Featured story: Working, Then and Now

We present a special, one hour episode of our series The Working Tapes of Studs Terkel.

History
Graphic
History
Graphic
History
Graphic

Diaries We give people tape recorders and help them document their own lives in their own words

Graphic

Josh’s Diaries: Tourette’s

Josh has Tourette’s Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable tics and involuntary verbal outbursts.

Listen
Graphic

The Last Place: Diary of a Retirement Home

A group of residents of The Presbyterian Home use tape recorders to document their lives.

Listen

Portraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places

Graphic

Centenarians in Lockdown

Winner of the 2020 Third Coast Festival Award! Joe Newman is 107 years old. He recorded himself and his fiancé, Anita Sampson on her 100th birthday.

Listen
Graphic

The Final Frontline

Fourth generation funeral directors reflect on their experience of the coronavirus pandemic and prepare for a second wave.

Listen

Histories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.

Graphic

The Chamizal: A Town Between Borders

When the U.S. and Mexico chose the Rio Grande as an international border, they didn’t expect the river to move.

Listen
Graphic

Last Witness: The Kerner Commission

Former Senator Oklahoma Fred Harris is the last surviving member of the Kerner Commission, a group appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the root causes of the violence and civil unrest that swept the nation in the late ’60s.

Listen
css.php