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Featured story: George Wallace and the Legacy of a Sentence
Listen to our story about “Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever” on the Radio Diaries Podcast.
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Featured story: The View from the 79th Floor
On July 28, 1945 an Army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. A dictation machine in a nearby office happened to capture the sound of the plane as it hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor. Find out what happened next on the Radio Diaries Podcast.
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Featured story: Miss Subways
Beauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman. But for 35 years, the Miss Subways contest in New York City celebrated the everyday working girl.
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Diaries We give people tape recorders and help them document their own lives in their own words
Melissa: 16 Years Later
As an 18 year old raised in the foster care system, Melissa took NPR listeners along when she gave birth to her son Issaiah. Over the past 16 years Melissa and her son have faced many challenges, from eviction notices to her son’s life-threatening medical diagnosis. In her new diary, Melissa chronicles her life as a working single mother, and reveals things about her past that her son has never known.
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Amanda’s Diary: Girlfriend
Amanda is gay. Amanda’s family is Catholic. And she’s having a hard time convincing her parents that this is not “just a phase.”
ListenPortraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places
Walter Backerman, Seltzer Man
Once there were thousands of seltzer men in New York City. Today, Walter Backerman is one of the last.
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The Last Man on the Mountain
In the 1990s, Arch Coal began mining Pigeonroost Hollow. Now Jimmy Weekley is the last person left there.
ListenHistories Weaving together oral histories and archival tape to bring the past to life
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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Segregation Now, Segregation Forever: The Infamous Words of George Wallace
On the 50th anniversary of Wallace’s inaugural speech as the Governor of Alabama, Radio Diaries tells the story behind those infamous words, and the man who delivered them.
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