Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Life
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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.

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Featured story: Mandela’s Election: 30 Years Later

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

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Featured story: Working, Then and Now

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

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

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Going Home: Cristel’s Diary

At 15, Cristel attacked a classmate with a razor blade. After 3 years of incarceration, she’s being released.

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Matthew and the Judge: Juvenile Court Diary

Through their diaries, Matthew and Judge Jeremiah tell the same story from two different sides of the bench.

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Portraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places

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Home is Where You Park Your Mini Van

As the pandemic hit, Naida Lavon found herself without a home and without a job. Part of our Hunker Down Diaries series.

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Living with Dying

On Valentine’s Day 2020, Peter Fodera’s heart broke. He nearly died. Peter sat down with his daughter who knows a thing or two about death.

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Histories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.

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The Forgotten Story of Clinton Melton

Emmett Till’s murder is considered the spark that ignited a burgeoning Civil Rights movement. But there was another brazen murder of a Black man that happened just three months later, in a neighboring town in the Delta.

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Busman’s Holiday

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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