February 4, 11, and 18 at 5pm on KRWG-FM
Objects hold history. They evoke stories stamped in time. The Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture has opened up a world of stories that visitors are flocking to discover.
To mark the September opening of the museum, The Washington Post invited people across the country to submit photographs of family objects that connect them personally to black history. APM Reports teamed up with The Post to create a podcast series spotlighting some of those objects and the stories behind them.
Historically Black — produced by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis of APM Reports (formerly American RadioWorks) — reveals intimate and surprising aspects of history through interviews, archival sound, and music. The episodes are hosted by popular African American actors and writers.
EPISODE ONE February 4 at 5pm
Narrated by Keegan-Michael Key and Roxane Gay
•NASA Human Computers
During World War II, a labor shortage obliged the military to hire African American women with mathematical skills to help make complicated computations for warplane designs. This small team faced discrimination, but would help NASA astronauts land on the moon.
•Million Man March
The Million Man March of 1995 is remembered in a conversation between a young woman and her father, who attended it. He talks about how the event changed his life; she recalls what it meant to see a poster of the march hang on the wall of her father’s den since she was a girl.
•Harlem Renaissance Photographer
James Van Der Zee was a celebrated African American photographer who documented black New York for much of the 20th century. During the Harlem Renaissance of the 1910s to the 1930s, his images emphasized the dignity and beauty of black people at a time when the dominant culture portrayed them in degrading ways.
EPISODE TWO February 11 at 5pm
Hosted by Issa Rae and Another Round podcast duo Heben Nigatu and Tracy Clayton
•Slave Bill of Sale
Members of an extended Tennessee family talk about their great-great-grandfather, a slave owned by his white, biological father. After Emancipation, their ancestor managed to buy a farm. Family members reflect on the strength it took to survive slavery and to prosper in the years that followed.
•Missouri Fiddler
A young musician and actor discovers that his great-great-grandfather was Bill Driver, a celebrated fiddler in Missouri. Family members recall how Driver’s fiddle playing often brought blacks and whites together at country dances and fiddle contests. They also reveal the complicated nature of interracial mixing in the Jim Crow era.
•HBCU Founder
William Hooper Councill was a former slave who served as the first president of what would become Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, one of the oldest historically black colleges and universities in the country. Negotiating the race politics of Reconstruction was sometimes dangerous work; Councill used his skills at writing and oratory to call for the uplift of his race.
EPISODE THREE February 18 at 5pm
Hosted by Roxane Gay and podcast duo Heben Nigatu and Tracy Clayton
•The Question of Black Identity
Racial identity in the U.S. is complicated because race is an invented category rooted in slavery. This episode explores the question of black identity in America through the voices of four people who, at one time or another, have had to answer the question: “What are you?”
•Black Love Stories
This story spotlights enduring love among African American couples. It dives into the history of marriage among black Americans — including the time when it was illegal for slaves to wed. It also explores why it matters that these stories are visible in pop culture today.
HOST BIOS:
Keegan-Michael Key is a popular film and television actor. He was the co-star and co-creator of Comedy Central’s Key & Peele, winner of a Peabody Award and an American Comedy Award.
Issa Rae is the creator and star of the hit HBO series Insecure, and of the award-winning Web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. Her first book, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, is a New York Times best-seller.
Roxane Gay is an associate professor of English at Purdue University. Her books include An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, and Difficult Women. Her writing has appeared in major periodicals and collections, including Virgini
Heben Nigatu is a writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the co-host of BuzzFeed’s podcast Another Round. And Tracy Clayton is a writer for BuzzFeed and co-host of Another Round. The Onion’s A.V. Club describes Clayton and Nigatu as “funny and insightful hosts, bringing their infectious personalities to conversations that range from squirrels to self-care to microaggressions in the workplace.”