Hank Klibanoff has done more deep and rich coverage of race and the South than just about anybody alive.
“The Race Beat,” the book he co-wrote with Gene Roberts about how the media covered the civil rights era, won a Pulitzer Prize for history in 2007. And his current project, a podcast called “Buried Truths” through WABE, the NPR station in Atlanta, won a Peabody Award in 2018.
The first two seasons of “Buried Truths” focused on long-ago racially motivated killings of black Georgians. But the most current season tracked a more current case: last year’s death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed after being chased through a neighborhood by three white men in Brunswick, Georgia.
I spoke to Klibanoff as part of WFAE’s Charlotte Podcast Festival, which featured leading podcasters from all over the country.
I learned so much from Hank about not just how a project like “Buried Truths” gets put together, but why he has devoted his life to such difficult work. I pulled the highlights of our talk for this episode.
Show notes:
- The "Buried Truths" home page
- The Pulitzer citation for "The Race Beat"
Other music in this episode:
- Kai Engel, "January"
- Lobo Loco, "Halls of Truth"
