Fresh Air
Weekdays at 7:00pm
Opening the window on contemporary arts and issues with guests from worlds as diverse as literature and economics.
A woman invented the rape kit. So why was a man given credit for it?
Rape kits were widely known as "Vitullo Kits" after a Chicago police sergeant. But a new book tells the story of Marty Goddard, a community activist who worked with runaway teenagers in the 1970s.
How one Civil Rights activist posed as a white man in order to investigate lynchings
by Dave Davies
White Lies author A.J. Baime tells the story of Walter White, a light-skinned Black man whose ancestors had been enslaved. For years White risked his life investigating racial violence in the South.
HBO series captures Julia Child's joy and mastery in the kitchen
by David Bianculli
Julia is a wonderful, eight-episode series that tells of story of how Child brought her recipes — and her enthusiasm for demystifying French cooking — to television.
Remembering Madeleine Albright, the first woman to serve as secretary of state
by Terry Gross
Appointed by President Clinton in 1997, Albright advocated for the expansion of NATO into the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. She died March 23. Originally broadcast in 2003 and 2018.
A doctor chronicles life in a Chicago ER during the first year of the pandemic
by Dave Davies
Though he fully expected to be infected with COVID, Dr. Thomas Fisher says he was committed to providing medical care to the Black community on Chicago's South Side. His new book is The Emergency.
Cecil Taylor's piano lightning bolts are precisely targeted in this 1973 recording
by Kevin Whitehead
Taylor's 1973 concert at New York's Town Hall has just been released for the first time as a digital album. It's a great, early example of Taylor's mature music — dense but well-designed.