The Prologue

The past is present


Episode 14, Season 3 / Feb 15, 2024

Daisy Bates in Mitchellville

Mitchellville, Arkansas: Part Two

The Prologue

Join producer Christian Leus for part two of our story about Mitchellville, Arkansas, as she explores the history and legacy of the Mitchellville Self-Help Project, led by Daisy Bates. This episode is supported by the Arkansas Humanities Council.

Listen

Episode 13, Season 3 / Feb 8, 2024

Foundations of a Black Town

Mitchellville, Arkansas: Part One

The Prologue

Join producer Christian Leus as she travels to Mitchellville, Arkansas, a small Black town close to the Mississippi state line. Mitchellville’s story is little known even to Arkansans, but in the 1960s, it was the site of a high-profile civic improvement project started by civil rights leader Daisy Bates. In the first part of this two-part series, we’ll explore Mitchellville’s foundations and what it means to be a Black town. This episode is supported by the Arkansas Humanities Council.

Listen

Episode 11, Season 3 / Dec 28, 2023

Wade In the Water

Reconstruction, then and now (Part II)

The Prologue

In this two-part episode, producer Sara A. Lewis visits the South Carolina Sea Islands, where the triumphs and tragedies of Reconstruction have left a unique legacy. In Part II, join Sara on Hilton Head and St. Helena, two more islands where the promises of Reconstruction blossomed into independent, self-sufficient communities of formerly enslaved people. On Hilton Head, Sara visits Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, once the site of a self-governed Black community; on St. Helena, she explores the Penn School, the nation’s first school for emancipated slaves and home to a civil rights legacy that stretches into the 20th century and beyond. This episode features musical performance by Frankie James, Olivia Stith, Samantha Higgs, and Dominique Jones, with arrangement by Frankie James, and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the African American History Commission.

Listen

Episode 10, Season 3 / Dec 28, 2023

Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

Reconstruction, then and now (Part I)

The Prologue

In this two-part episode, producer Sara A. Lewis visits the South Carolina Sea Islands, where the triumphs and tragedies of Reconstruction have left a unique legacy. In Part I, join Sara on Edisto Island, where formerly enslaved people owned land, built schools, and created prosperous communities all before the Emancipation Proclamation. Hear from scholars and local experts as they tell the story of Edisto’s inspiring successes, its unjust dissolution, and the marks that both have left on the island today. This episode features musical performance by Frankie James, Olivia Stith, Samantha Higgs, and Dominique Jones, with arrangement by Frankie James, and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the African American History Commission.

Listen

Episode 8, Season 3 / Nov 30, 2023

Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farm

A legacy of environmental justice

The Prologue

In this episode, journalist Brittany Brown tells the story of Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm, a radical cooperative initiative that sought to bring food sovereignty to northern Mississippi. Join Brown as she speaks to experts to learn more about Hamer’s life and work, and visits a farm in Montgomery County, Mississippi, to discover how Hamer’s vision of environmental justice resonates with Black landowners today.

Listen

Episode 7, Season 3 / Jul 12, 2023

Mamie’s Blues

Women in Storyville

The Prologue

We head back to New Orleans to visit Storyville, the red-light district that made the city infamous in the early 20th century. Producer Christian Leus explores the history of the neighborhood and disentangles its complicated legacies of jazz, sex work, and social upheaval. Join Christian as she digs through archival audio and conducts new interviews with scholars to uncover what the myth of Storyville leaves out. Here, see more archival material from the district in its heyday.

Listen

Episode 7, Season 3 / Jun 15, 2023

We Watched The Radio

With Terry & Jo Harvey Allen

The Prologue

In this episode, producer Christian Adam Brown travels to Santa Fe to meet Terry Allen and his wife, Jo Harvey Allen. Terry is a prolific artist, musician, and writer. His songs have been covered by Lucinda Williams, Sturgill Simpson, David Byrne, and many others. His visual artworks have been exhibited in The Met and MoMA. Terry’s radio work, which features the incredible theatrical performance work of Jo Harvey, challenged audiences when they were first broadcast. We bring segments of this work to you in this episode. Here, explore some visual examples of the pair's cross-medium work. (All images © Terry Allen and © Jo Harvey and courtesy of L.A. Louver, Venice, CA.)

Listen

Episode 6, Season 3 / May 31, 2023

You Always Return Part II

Searching for Viet-Cajun in New Orleans

The Prologue

In this episode, cookbook author, chef, and teacher Andrea Nguyen travels to New Orleans East with producer Christian Adam Brown in search of an even deeper understanding of Vietnamese cuisine in New Orleans. Andrea and Christian meet the farmers that grow produce for this vibrant community and taste the ever popular King Cake. This episode also features Từ Nước (Of Water) - A New Orleans Tết, a new short film by Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill. It follows chef Nini Nguyễn, a New Orleans native, as she prepares a traditional feast for the 2023 Lunar New Year.

Listen

Episode 5, Season 1 / Dec 18, 2019

Don’t Cry (Warrior Song)

Can we achieve togetherness in our time?

The Prologue

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

Listen

Episode 5, Season 3 / May 18, 2023

You Always Return Part I

Searching for Viet-Cajun in New Orleans

The Prologue

In this episode, cookbook author, chef, and teacher Andrea Nguyen travels to New Orleans with producer Christian Adam Brown to find the origins of Viet-Cajun food, a popular fusion that has been appearing at restaurants all over the United States. Join Andrea and Christian as they visit with several Vietnamese American restaurateurs to learn how they envision their own identities within the vibrant food culture of New Orleans. This episode also features Từ Nước (Of Water) - A New Orleans Tết, a new short film by Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill. It follows chef Nini Nguyễn, a New Orleans native, as she prepares a traditional feast for the 2023 Lunar New Year.

Listen

Episode 4, Season 3 / May 10, 2023

Beyond the Canon: Lillian Smith

Investigating the life and legacy of radically subversive writer Lillian Smith

The Prologue

In this episode, Oxford American contributing editor Diane Roberts travels to Rabun County, Georgia, to visit the campgrounds owned by Lillian Smith, the author of Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream. Roberts investigates how the environment of the campgrounds shaped Smith, a white activist and writer who worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, and others to disrupt white supremacy. This episode includes newly discovered audio of the voice of Lillian Smith, calling out to us in the present through her enduring legacy.

Listen

Episode 3, Season 1 / Oct 17, 2019

Cemetery Angel

AIDS and end-of-life care in Arkansas

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.

Listen

Episode 3, Season 2 / Dec 23, 2021

If You Would Know Us

Notes on the Wilmington Massacre and a live performance by Birds of Chicago

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.

Listen

Episode 3, Season 3 / May 4, 2023

The Camel Experiment: The Legend of Hi Jolly

Camels, a legendary Muslim immigrant, and U.S. soldiers intersect in an unlikely celebration

The Prologue

In this episode, Marfa Public Radio’s Annie Rosenthal and Points South producer Christian Adam Brown revisit the unusual history found at the sites of OA contributor Sasha von Oldershausen’s essay, “The Camel Experiment.” Travel to Texas and meet Doug Baum and his Texas Camel Corps, survey the remnants of a mid-19th century military experiment that helped pave the way for the U.S.’s westward expansion. Follow along as Christian and Annie visit Quartzsite, Arizona, to learn about Hadji Ali, a Muslim immigrant who served as a military camel driver and is now memorialized as a folk hero.

Listen

Episode 2, Season 3 / Apr 26, 2023

Bedfellows Forever

How 19th century male romantic friendships queer our understanding of historical masculinity

The Prologue

In this episode, OA contributor Logan Scherer returns to a topic that has been his persistent curiosity for nearly a decade: romantic male friendships. Grappling with how to define his own relationship with his best friend, Logan explores the archives and accounts of 19th century men who clasped hands, hugged, shared tears, wrote deeply intimate letters to one another, and shared beds. Logan conducts new interviews with Dr. Anya Jabour, Dr. Sergio Lussana, and writer Brontez Purnell to explore the unique history of bedfellows who are, for him, “queerer…than any form of intimacy…in the twenty-first century.”

Listen

Episode 2, Season 2 / Dec 2, 2021

Half My World

Exploring Anne Spencer's poetry and a live performance by Lucy Dacus

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.

Listen

Episode 2, Season 1 / May 8, 2020

The Hurting Kind

John Paul White, Mary Miller, and a dispatch from Horn Island, Mississippi

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.

Listen

Episode 1, Season 2 / Nov 4, 2021

The Borderlands

A dispatch from the Rio Grande Valley and a performance by Adia Victoria

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

Listen

Episode 1, Season 3 / Apr 19, 2023

The Joyful Sound

In Blackey, Kentucky, Old Regular Baptists are still singing in a four-hundred-year-old tradition

The Prologue

Welcome back to Points South! In this first episode of our third season, OA contributor David Ramsey revisits the Old Regular Baptists of Blackey, Kentucky, to hear the congregation’s distinctive style of singing and preaching. In Old Regular Baptist churches, the human voice is the sole instrument, singing lined-out hymnody, a tradition that began in parish churches in England in the early 1600s. You’ll hear the voices of the Old Regular Baptists as they sing, new interviews with music scholar Jeff Titon, and David Ramsey’s own reflections about his experience with these rare and unique sounds.

Listen

Episode 1, Season 1 / Sep 17, 2019

Working on a Building

Why is country music so white?

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

Listen