Buried Truths

Caroline Herring is a singer, songwriter and scholar of the South. She discusses the evolution of her music and of the song she wrote for Buried Truths.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Buried Truths Live, Part 2: Our special event continues with a conversation between Hank and Kelley Stinson, granddaughter of the policeman who killed James Brazier.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Buried Truths Live, Part I: a special evening onstage with the daughters of James Brazier, who share the pain of his loss some 60 years after their father died.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An anonymous letter in the files of Donald Lee Hollowell captures white attitudes in the South. Some whites harbored no hatred for Black people but were too afraid to say so. What about today? And tomorrow?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Voting rights activists in Terrell are met with shootings and arson, attracting the attention of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson and an angry President Kennedy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Penniless and heartbroken, Hattie Bell Brazier pulls the only lever of power available to her: she sues Mathews and Cherry in federal court, setting up a tense battle between leading lawyers for and against civil rights.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James Brazier’s family will never forget his killing, but what about the family of Weyman Cherry? His granddaughter reaches out to us after learning of his brutal racism. She accepts the truth but struggles with it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An underground railroad of information smuggles the story of Terrible Terrell out of Georgia and onto the Washington Post’s front page.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The police said Willie Countryman had a knife, but did he?  And his girlfriend is left to wonder about his love for her. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The cops had already hurt James Brazier when they arrested him and took him to jail. But they returned late that night to finish him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On one April day, three generations of the Brazier family, including 10-year-old James Jr., were beaten by white Dawson police. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Terrell County was like a lot of rural communities in Georgia. But in some ways, it was like no other place on earth.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James and Hattie Brazier worked hard and earned more than most people in Dawson, white or black. But this black couple's prosperity was a provocation to white police.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An interview with Margaret Burnham about her new book, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners.  The book is so revealing that we wanted to share a conversation she had with the public radio program, Fresh Air (produced by WHYY in Philadelphia and distributed by NPR).   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A gruesome, unpunished 1967 murder reveals little-known stories of the civil rights movement and Black resistance in Mississippi and Louisiana. "American Reckoning" on Frontline, from PBS, tells the story of Wharlest Jackson Sr. and the search for those who killed him. In this episode of Buried Truths, host Hank Klibanoff talks to the filmmakers behind this documentary, Brad Lichtenstein and Yoruba Richen. Klibanoff also speaks with Stanley Nelson, the weekly newspaper editor who brought this story of Wharlest Jackson Sr. to light.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery have now been sentenced. Host Hank Klibanoff and his Emory colleague, professor Carol Anderson, talk about Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley’s decision on the public radio program Closer Look with Rose Scott,  from WABE Atlanta.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The jury finds all three defendants guilty of murder. Sentencing will come later, but the three will almost surely live out their years in prison. A case that was all about race comes to a close with almost no mention of race in the courtroom. Outside the court, two of the defense attorneys are condemned for comments that inflamed much of the nation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Although the racial composition of the jury – 11 white jurors, one black – has set off alarm bells, the trial commences with three opening statements and the first prosecution witness. A Glynn County police officer’s body-cam footage filled the  somber courtroom with horrific images from the scene of Ahmaud Arbery’s killing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The murder trial for defendants Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan is set to begin in October and there have been some recent, critically important twists leading up to this point. WABE’s Rose Scott talks with Buried Truths host Hank Klibanoff and WABE legal analyst Page Pate to preview the trial and discuss the indictment of former Glynn Co. district attorney Jackie Johnson for obstructing the Ahmaud Arbery case.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In February 2020, Hank Klibanoff was invited back to his hometown of Florence, Alabama for a live community event. It got him thinking about growing up in a state that was notorious for its civil rights abuses. Hank’s recollection of his childhood in the 1950’s and 60’s is that Florence seemed to be more progressive than the rest of Alabama. But… was it really?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.