Looking for podcast episodes on Black Lives Matter and related topics?  Check out the list below for some recommendations from the Library Committee.

 

99% Invisible is about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.

• The Blazer Experiment
• Articles of Interest #8: Knockoffs
• The Green Book Redux

 

Adult ISH is a first-of-its-kind culture, advice and storytelling podcast produced entirely by folks who are almost adults.

• Black ISH
• Working Through My ISH
• Roots ISH

 

The Allusionist: a podcast about language.

• Yes, As In
• In Crypt, Decrypt
• Ear Hustling

 

Black History Year
Slavery is often mistaught in schools, while black history in general is too often either not taught at all or taught through a white lens. The nonprofit news organization PushBlack is working to change that through this new show, which delivers sharp, concise black history lessons with a focus on “history, thinkers and activists that are left out of the mainstream conversation.” Bolstered by interviews with historical experts, the host, Jay Walker, narrates compelling stories about subjects like racial bias in medicine, the tradition of black gun ownership and, in one instance, the extraordinary kidnapping of a young black female millionaire.

 

Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 essential conversations about race in a pivotal year for America.

 

Criminal is an award-winning podcast about true crime. Stories of people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle.

• It Looked Like Fire
• 695BGK
• Just Mercy

 

Ear Hustle brings you the daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration.

• Us & Them
• Tell Christy I Love Her
• Future on Ice

 

Everything is Alive is an interview show in which all the subjects are inanimate objects. In each episode, a different thing tells us its life story – and everything it says is true.

• Chioke, Grain of Sand
• Ayo, Balloon

 

The Heart is an audio art project about intimacy and humanity. It is comprised of a community of writers, radio makers and artists who make personal documentary work about bodies, love, power dynamics, and all of the invisible things in the air between humans.

• Race Traitor Series
• Divesting from People Pleasing Series

 

The History of American Slavery
There’s never been a more vital time to get educated on the long history of racial violence in the United States, and Slate’s exhaustive oral history is as enlightening as it is gripping. Originally aired in 2015, “The History of American Slavery” tracks the development of slavery in this country over nine densely researched episodes, with its hosts, Jamelle Bouie and Rebecca Onion, delivering humane and hard-hitting analysis. The show challenges preconceptions from its very first episode, which focuses on slaves in early America. Later installments delve into the fateful explosion of the cotton industry, the skewed historical narrative around the Underground Railroad, and the ways that modern capitalism and medicine have been shaped by slavery. Joined by historians who offer context and insight, the hosts begin each episode by spotlighting the life of one enslaved man or woman whose experience speaks to a larger theme.

 

Kitchen Sisters Present: Stories from the b-side of history. Lost recordings, hidden worlds, people possessed by a sound, a vision, a mission.

• First Day of School, 1960 New Orleans
• Black Chef, White House: African American Cooks in the President’s Kitchen
• A Secret Civil Rights Kitchen: Georgia Gilmore and the Club from Nowhere

 

The Memory Palace is a storytelling podcast created and produced Nate DiMeo.

• Antidisestablishmentarianism
• We’ve Forgotten James Powell
• Junk Room

 

Mortified: Witness adults sharing their most embarrassing childhood artifacts (journals, letters, poems, lyrics, plays, home movies, art) with others, in order to reveal stories about their lives.

• Sakena – Mr. Telephone Man
• Cynthia – I Need a (Straight) Man
• Country Mouse vs City Mouse

 

Over the Road is an eight-part series that gives voice to the trials and triumphs of America’s long haul truckers.

• Why We Drive

 

Radio Diaries: First-person diaries, sound portraits, and hidden chapters of history. From teenagers to octogenarians, prisoners to prison guards, bra saleswomen to gospel preachers. The extraordinary stories of ordinary life.

• Remembering Olivia Hooker
• The Words of Renault Robinson – Then and Now
• Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair

 

The Sporkful: Each week on the show, we use humor and humanity to approach food from many angles, including science, history, identity, culture, economics, and lengthy debates on the best way to layer peanut butter and jelly in a sandwich. We like to say it’s not for foodies, it’s for eaters.

• 5/31/20: Can a Restaurant Be for Everyone?
• 1/13/20: Notes from a Young Black Chef
• 10/14/19: When White People say “Plantation”

 

Song Exploder is a podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

• Meek Mill – Trauma
• Jamila Woods – Baldwin
• Michael Kiwanuka – Black Man in a White World

 

This Day in Esoteric Political History: Jody Avirgan, political historian Nicole Hemmer, and special guests rescue moments from the entirety of U.S. history to map our journey through a tumultuous year. Each episode takes on one moment from that day and explores what makes it interesting, and what lessons can be learned –– all in under ten minutes.

• Shirley Shows Up (1972)
• Ain’t I A Woman (1851)
• Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)

 

This is Love: The creators of the popular podcast Criminal surprised everyone when they turned their attention to an investigation of a very different kind: how to be alone, how to live forever, how to wait, how to worry and, yes, how to love.

• Prairie Warbler
• Always Tomorrow

 

Theory of Everything plunges listeners into a whirl of art, journalism, fiction, interviews, and exploding pipe dreams. Host Benjamen Walker connects the dots in a world of information overload, featuring conversations with philosophers, friends, and the occasional too-good-to-be-real guest.

• Going Karura
• Utopia (part v)
• Instaserfs

 

The Truth makes movies for your ears: short stories that are sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always intriguing. Each story is different, and usually 10 to 20 minutes long. We take you to unexpected places using only sound.

• The Off Season
• The Sweet Music of Friction
• Visible