The Prologue

The past is present


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

Searching for Viet-Cajun in New Orleans, Part I

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

OA contributing editor Diane Roberts revisits her 2016 essay “Stay and Resist,” investigating the about 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

Contributor Annie Rosenthal and producer Christian Adam Brown journey to Texas and Arizona, where 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.

This episode was produced by Sara A. Lewis, Christian Adam Brown, and Annie Rosenthal. Thanks to Curtis Fye and Trey Pollard of Spacebomb for our series sound design and score. Additional sound design and score by Christian Adam Brown. Thanks to Doug Baum, Téa Obreht, Gary Nabhan, and Lynn Stimson for their time and insights. And a special thanks to Farooq Ahmed for his guidance.

Listen

Episode 2, Season 3 / Apr 26, 2023

Bedfellows Forever

OA contributor Logan Scherer explores how 19th century male romantic friendships queer his understanding of historical masculinity and illuminate one of his closest relationships.

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

OA contributor David Ramsey revisits Blackey, Kentucky, where 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