Radio Diaries cover art

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries

By: Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
Listen for free

About this listen

First-person diaries, sound portraits, and hidden chapters of history from Peabody Award-winning producer Joe Richman and the Radio Diaries team. From teenagers to octogenarians, prisoners to prison guards, bra saleswomen to lighthouse keepers. The extraordinary stories of ordinary life. Radio Diaries is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX. Learn more at radiotopia.fm

Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved.
Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Guest Spotlight: William Parker's War on Slave Catchers
    Apr 2 2026

    This week we're bringing you a story from our friends at History This Week, a podcast from the History Channel.

    April 3, 1951. A man who escaped slavery is grabbed off the streets of Boston and thrown into a carriage. He fights back, shouting to the crowd, but it doesn’t matter. Under a new federal law, even the North isn’t safe.

    The Fugitive Slave Act has turned cities like Boston into hunting grounds. Freedom seekers are being captured, and ordinary citizens are being forced to help.

    But across the North, resistance is growing. In Pennsylvania, a man named William Parker is building a network to fight back. When slave catchers come to his door, that resistance explodes into violence.

    How did one law push the country dramatically closer to war? And what happens when the people targeted by this law refuse to surrender?

    Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
    Show More Show Less
    39 mins
  • Detained: A Homecoming
    Mar 27 2026

    Last week, Leqaa Kordia, young Palestinian woman from Paterson, New Jersey, walked out of an ICE detention center in Texas. Kordia had been held for more than a year.

    Radio Diaries has been following her story and recorded Kordia while detention. Now, we bring you her first interview since her release.

    Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
    Show More Show Less
    16 mins
  • The Real Refugees of Casablanca
    Mar 19 2026

    When the Hollywood classic, Casablanca, was released in 1943, moviegoers were thrilled by the love story. Humphrey Bogart stars as the cynical owner of Rick’s Cafe, a nightclub in Morocco. Ingrid Bergman is his old flame, Ilsa, now married to Victor Laszlo, a dashing resistance leader hunted by the Nazis.

    Many of the characters at Rick's Café are European refugees trying to make their way to America. What most viewers didn't know is that those characters were played by actors who themselves had recently fled the Nazis. This casting choice lent the film an authenticity that helped deliver its message: that a war far from our borders was a war worth waging.

    Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
    Show More Show Less
    13 mins
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.