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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Frankie: 16 Years Later

As a teenager, Frankie recorded his life as a high school football star. 16 years later and with a baby on the way, he shares his struggle with drug addiction.

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Thembi’s AIDS Diary

Thembi Ngubane was willing to stand up and speak out at a time when few South Africans were willing to say, “I have AIDS.”

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Portraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places

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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.

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Lockdown in Lockup

Moe Monsuri shares his experience of the pandemic from behind bars at Sing Sing prison. Part of our new series Hunker Down Diaries.

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Histories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.

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The Almost Astronaut

In an attempt to beat the Soviet Union in the space race, the Kennedy administration enlisted Air Force captain Ed Dwight to enter the astronaut training program as its first Black trainee.

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A Guitar, A Cello, and The Day That Changed Music

November 23, 1936, was a very good day for recorded music.

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