
CURRENTLY READING
Passing Strange by Martha A. Sandweiss
Monday, May 26 through Friday, June 20, 2025
Read by Melvin Hinton
Clarence King was a late 19th-century celebrity, a brilliant scientist and explorer once described by Secretary of State John Hay as “the best and brightest of his generation.” But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for thirteen years he lived a double life – the first as the prominent white geologist and writer Clarence King, and a second as the black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd. The fair, blue-eyed son of a wealthy China trader passed across the color line, revealing his secret to his black common-law wife, Ada Copeland, only on his deathbed. Noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the dramatic, distinctively American tale of a family built along the fault lines of celebrity, class, and race- a story that spans the long century from Civil War to civil rights.
LISTENER ADVISORY: This book contains language which listeners may find offensive.
THEME: “From the Black Belt” by William Grant Still performed by the Westchester Symphony Orchestra, Siegried Landau conductor
(Penguin Books; ISBN 10: 014311686X / ISBN 13 978-0143116868)
Readings are archived for one week following the broadcast day of the last chapter due to publisher 
copyright restrictions.
Latest Episodes
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Passing Strange 15 of 20 – King Falls Ill
Following the birth of their fifth child, King learns while out West that there is a spot of tuberculosis on his lung. As race riots erupt in New York, King […]
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Passing Strange 14 of 20 – King Moves To Queens
Ada gives birth to her and James Todd’s (King’s) fifth child. King takes on work for mining companies to allows him to buy Ada and their children a house in […]
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Passing Strange 13 of 20 – King Cracks
Possibly under the pressure of living a double life, Clarence King suffers a nervous breakdown in public and is committed to insane asylum for two months.
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Passing Strange 12 of 20 – The Families of Clarence King and James Todd
Ada gives birth to a daughter, Grace Margaret. King must care for his ailing mother. Ada and James Todd/King’s son, LeRoy falls ill and dies. Ada gives birth to a […]
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Passing Strange 11 of 20 – The Secrets We Keep
King continues his double life as James Todd throughout his 40s and 50s. He moves out of the Brunswick Hotel and buys a house closer to his mother and Brooklyn, […]
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Coming Next

All The Beauty In The World by Patrick Bringley
monday, june 23 through friday, july 04, 2025
Read by pete bissen
Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d become a guard at an art museum. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew — The Metropolitan Museum of Art.