Radio Diaries

The New York City public school system is huge. More than a million students, all being taught by 75,000 teachers. Except, a few hundred of those teachers are being paid NOT to teach. These are teachers who are accused of misconduct. Often without warning, they’re removed from their classrooms and sent to a Department of Education reassignment center. Teachers call it: “The Rubber Room.” The truth is, some of these teachers haven’t done anything wrong. And sometimes they don’t even know why they’ve ended up in the Rubber Room. But the worst part is that teachers can remain there for years while their cases slowly creep through the system. Not guilty, not innocent… just doing time. In 2010, the NYC Department of Education made an agreement with the Teachers Union to close the Rubber Room. Turns out, that hasn’t been so easy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This month, the big tent is finally coming down. After 146 years, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey are closing the ‘Greatest Show on Earth.’ The elephants have already retired to a farm in central florida. Where will the 400 human cast and crew members go next? Perhaps they’ll go just an hour west of that elephant farm…to Gibsonton, Florida. It was once known as the Oddest Town in America. Gibsonton – aka Gibtown – is where the Sideshow went to retire. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When our friends at the storytelling show, The Moth, heard Melissa Rodriguez’s audio diary, they invited her to tell a story live on stage, in a special show in Brooklyn. For Mother’s day, we’re bringing you Melissa’s story, as she told it live at The Moth. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This is the story of a song, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down,” written by a 12-year-old boy on his deathbed. A boy who – instead of dying – went on to become a Pentecostal preacher. A boy who would later help inspire the birth of Rock & Roll. His name was Brother Claude Ely…and he was known as The Gospel Ranger. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nelson Mandela famously spent 27 years in prison for fighting against apartheid in South Africa. He was sentenced to life in 1964 for treason, along with 7 others. One of them was Ahmed Kathrada who died this week. He was 87.  Mandela, Kathrada and the others served most of their sentences at Robben Island. Kathrada often said that being in prison for more than two decades was like being preserved in amber. When he was released, he found himself in a pretty different country. He was now allowed in the same restaurants, theaters and libraries as whites. But being allowed in doesn’t always mean you feel you belong. After spending his entire life fighting a racist system, Kathrada said he began to realize how much of that system he still carried inside. Today on the podcast, we’re remembering Ahmed Kathrada with chapter 3 of our series Mandela: An Audio History. Voices: Eddie Daniels (political prisoner) Ahmed Kathrada (political prisoner) Sonny Venkatrathnam (political prisoner) Neville Alexander (political prisoner) Nelson Mandela Zindzi Mandela-Hlongwane (daughter of Nelson Mandela) Mac Maharaj (political prisoner)   Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 1966, a young Marine took a reel-to-reel tape recorder with him into the Vietnam War. For two months, Michael A. Baronowski made tapes of his friends, of life in foxholes, of combat. And he sent those audio letters home to his family in Norristown, Pennsylvania. And then he was killed in action. Michael’s tapes survived and were used to produce this story as part of the public radio series “Lost and Found Sound,” created by the Kitchen Sisters and Jay Allison. The story was produced by Christina Egloff and Jay Allison. *** Thanks to Jay Allison for writing a truly inspiring foreword to our new DIY Handbook. The handbook is a guide to producing great radio stories with chapters on interviewing, writing, and editing. Go to Transom.org to read Jay’s intro and get your own copy.     Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States. Over the past month, the Trump Administration has unveiled plans to arrest and deport large numbers of them. Under Obama, close to 3 million immigrants were deported. Trump is trying to do it faster. And with fewer restrictions. Undocumented immigrants have long been an easy political target, especially those who’ve committed crimes. But, like everything, the individual stories are always more complicated. In 1999, we met Jose William Huezo Soriano – everybody called him Weasel. Weasel was born in El Salvador and grew up in Los Angeles. He had a pretty typical American childhood. But as a teenager he joined a gang, and started getting in trouble with the police. Then Weasel got deported back to El Salvador. He was 26 years old, and he hadn’t been there since he was 5. He had no memories of the country. No close family there. And he’d forgotten most of his Spanish. Soon after he got deported, we gave Weasel a tape recorder to document his first year back in El Salvador.   Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Daisy Anderson and Alberta Martin lived what seemed like parallel lives. Both had grown up poor, children of sharecroppers in the South. Daisy in Tennessee; Alberta in Alabama. Both women got married in their early 20’s, to men who were near 80. And both those husbands had served in the Civil War. But as it happens, they’d served on opposite sides. Daisy and Alberta were two of the last surviving Civil War widows. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

One week into his Presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump says it will be, “an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall.” But campaign slogans are easy. Reality is harder. In this episode, two stories about that border. And what happens when, instead of people crossing the border, the border crosses the people. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Finding artists willing to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration proved harder than expected. Elton John, Celine Dion, Garth Brooks, Ice-T, and Kiss were among those reportedly invited. They all declined. Then there was British singer and X-factor winner Rebecca Ferguson. She said she would consider performing at the inauguration if she were allowed to sing the song Strange Fruit. On the podcast, we tell the story behind Strange Fruit. It begins with three men in a jail cell in Marion, Indiana. It ends with two deaths, one life spared, and a photograph that has become the most iconic image of lynching in America. A warning, this story contains some disturbing and graphic descriptions of the lynching. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices