RACE RELATIONS

Program 03-10-05-A Listen!

To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio

In the early 1950's two-year-old Jacqueline Henley in New Orleans became darker. After the neighbors complained, her aunt turned her over to New Orleans authorities. A black couple wanted to adopt Jacqueline but -- she had the word "white" stamped on her birth certificate. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, Randal Kennedy talks about the controversial issue of interracial adoption. Also, the American soul music of Stax Records, the legendary racially integrated record company.

 

SEGMENT 1:

Randall Kennedy is a Harvard Law professor. He's also the author of "Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption." He tells Steve Paulson about some notorious cases where racially mixed children were left in impossible situations by state miscegenation laws and explains why some Black people still consider it a betrayal to marry outside the race. Also, Valerie Boyd is the author of "Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston." She tells Jim Fleming that Hurston grew up in a supportive all-Black community and was interested in writing about the inner lives of ordinary Black women.

SEGMENT 2:

Civil rights historian Philip Dray is the author of "At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America." He describes the phenomenon of "spectacle lynchings" to Anne Strainchamps and discusses how the presence of TV cameras at the trial of the men who murdered Emmett Till changed the way the country viewed lynching.

SEGMENT 3:

Musicologist Rob Bowman is the author of "Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records." He tells Jim Fleming about the history of the record company that made Dr. King's dream a reality in its everyday artistic and business dealings. And we hear lots of great music.

Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 03-10-05-A.

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Books:

  • Rob Bowman, Soulsville U.S.A.: the story of Stax Records (Schirmer Trade Books)
  • Valerie Boyd, Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston (Scribner)
  • Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (The Modern Library)
  • Randall Kennedy, Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (Pantheon)
Websites:

Music:

Distribution dates:

week of 09/12/2004 - hour 1
week of 10/05/2003 - hour 1 		Listen!

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