With Good Reason

In "Free the Beaches" Andrew Kahrl tells the story of activist Ned Coll and his campaign to open New England’s shoreline to African Americans, as northern white families fought to preserve their segregated beaches.

D you ever worry that the radiation coming from your cell phone might be harmful? Researching Deborah O’Dell recently finished a 5-year study that found cell phone radiation can cause changes to our brain cells.

100 pilgrims journey from Charlottesville to the national memorial to lynching in Montgomery, Alabama to pay homage to a black man who was lynched in 1898.

Beginning with the end of the Civil War, and well into the middle of the twentieth century, the extralegal and socially sanctioned practice of lynching claimed the lives of at least 3,959 African American men, women, and children. Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren are the directors of a recent documentary about lynching and its effects on families. The film is called An Outrage.

Can art heal? This week, the redemptive power of language and song. Hear how former inmates use writing to explore their paths to imprisonment and how jazz can tell stories of social justice, healing, self-reflection and redemption.

African Americans who fought for their country in Vietnam often experienced the racism their families endured back home. Plus: Native Americans fought in Vietnam in greater numbers relative to their population than any other group. We hear testimony of Native Americans who fought for the U.S. on foreign soil.

Summer reads from the With Good Reason universe! Inman Majors gives us some comedic escapism, Erin Jones is reading about mid-century women artists reclaiming the pin-up, and Sharon Jones shares why she, a black woman with a comfortable salary, is spending her summer reading about whiteness and poverty.

The 1987 pop song “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega is considered the “mother of the MP3.” It was the test track used by German scientists to perfect this new file format that would revolutionize the music industry. Ryan Maguire has been experimenting with the sounds that got stripped out of that first MP3.

Jose Oberholzer is a transplant surgeon who lies awake nights thinking about a cellular cure for diabetes. He created the Chicago Diabetes Project so the best minds in the country can work together on a cure. He says we're close!

More than a hundred years ago, a small group of Russian Mennonites went looking for Christ in Central Asia. They didn’t find him, but they did find a home among Muslims in Uzbekistan. Sofia Samatar tells their history in her new memoir, alongside her own story of growing up the daughter of a Somali Muslim and an American Mennonite.

"Making Peace With Vietnam" is a documentary that chronicles life in that nation as Vietnam vets return to do humanitarian work. Plus, Ludwig Wittgenstein may be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, but few people know about him.

When you think animation you might think the Simpsons or Disney or Spirited Away. But animation artist Anh Do says animation art is everything that moves. He got his start as a boy who emigrated to America from Vietnam with no English skills, so he drew pictures of everything he needed.

The author of, A Hoot in the Light: Illuminating the Sensory Modes of Animal Communication, says that by recognizing animal voices, we make our particular brand of humanism a little more humane. And: “Honeybee” Brown is planting apiaries in urban community gardens in an effort to save the ailing honeybee.

The first captive Africans arrived in the Jamestown settlement in Virginia in 1619. A shipload of women intended as mates for the male settlers also arrived that year. How should we be telling and commemorating this history in 2019?

Sam Blanchard is a digital artist who uses humor and technology in his work. One of his favorites is a nod to his phobias--including going bald and a fear of heights!

Bix Beiderbecke was one of the first great legends of jazz, but his recording career lasted just six years. A book by Brendan Wolfe, Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend, connects Beiderbecke's music, history, and legend.

"Councilors Without Borders" traveled to Puerto Rico to help people who continue to suffer after the Hurricane Maria disaster. Residents are still feeling stressed by the storm and worry about the new storm season to come.

Jane Austen novels provide timeless insight into our virtues and vices. It turns out she drew inspiration on how to live a moral life from the great 18th century economist Adam Smith.

A few lucky college students who love the Harry Potter fantasy series get to travel to London for 3 weeks of magical creatures, potions, and herbology. And if you're impatient for the final season of Game of Thrones, we have your GoT fix--how the women of Westeros gain and lose power in that fictional patriarchal world of dragons and warfare. Plus: Long before there was Black Panther or the Blaxploitation movies, there were Race Movies. 500 were created by black actors and directors, but only 100 remain.

A story of Native American resilience comes to life in a new biography of Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota medicine man and Catholic preacher. Black Elk was born in 1863 and died at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Another new book illuminates the life of a Pequot Indian activist and author who is little known today, but has been called the Native American Frederick Douglas. William Apess challenged the power structure of his day using the pen, the pulpit, and protest.