Reckon Radio
Each season of Reckon Radio tells one in-depth story with Southern roots. Season One, "Greek Gods," examined the power and reach of a secret society at the University of Alabama. Season Two, "Recused," examined the rise and fall of Jeff Sessions. Season Three, “Unjustifiable,” examines how the death of Bonita Carter forever changed the course of Birmingham, Alabama. Season Four, “Panther: Blueprint for Black Power,” is the story of Lowdes County the unexpected birthplace of the Black Panther Party.
Episodes
July 31, 2018 • 2 mins
Episode Notes
Threats of violence, wire-tapping, boycotts, voter coercion, whatever it takes to win. That's the playbook of The Machine, a secret society that has controlled student government at the University of Alabama for more than a century. The Machine has been described as "the most powerful fraternity in America" and its tentacles reach to the State House, Washington and beyond.
Reckon Radio presents, "Greek Gods," an exami...
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August 27, 2018 • 36 mins
Episode Notes
Episode One: What is “The Machine?” Hosts Amy and John trace the history of the secret society, with a focus on the events of 1970 – 1993, including allegations of arson, wiretapping, crossing burning and physical assault. Also shares the story of Fran Viselli, owner of Bama Bino’s a popular pizza joint that faced a boycott after his son dared run against the Machine.
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August 27, 2018 • 33 mins
Episode Notes
Episode Two: The Machine strikes back. Is the organization nefarious, or just a voting block of friends? Former members of the Machine share their side of the story, including Lee Garrison a Tuscaloosa politician who allegedly used the secret society to be elected to an office beyond the University setting.
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August 27, 2018 • 32 mins
Episode Notes
Episode Three: What role does race play on campus? In recent years, the University of Alabama Greek system has been scrutinized by national media for sorority women caught on video using racial slurs and for sorority alumni intent on preserving the school’s “tradition” of white sororities. Also includes the story of Elliot Spillers, the first black student government president in 40 years, and what his surprise electi...
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August 27, 2018 • 35 mins
Episode Notes
Episode Four: What does The Machine teach students about real world politics? John Archibald shares his reflections on how student politics has real world ramifications. His wife Alecia also describes how she was forced to choose between her sorority and her relationship in college, illustrating the difficult decisions young women face during their time on campus.
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November 13, 2018 • 59 secs
Episode Notes
Reckon’s Amy Yurkanin dives into the untold story of Jeff Sessions, from the people who knew him best.
• How did Jeff Sessions become President Trump’s most controversial cabinet member? And what led to his downfall? • Did you know President Trump wasn’t the first person to pressure Sessions to look the other way during an investigation into the executive branch? • What was the political fallout of Sessions’ failed ju...
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November 21, 2018 • 49 mins
Episode Notes
Reckon's John Hammontree spoke with U.S. Sen. Doug Jones about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Jeff Sessions and President Donald Trump.
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December 11, 2018 • 33 mins
In 2016, Jeff Sessions was announced as President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general. For nearly two years, he held his dream job -- but the experience turned into something of a nightmare due to ongoing investigations into allegations of Russian meddling in the election. Sessions recused himself, drawing the ire of the president.
But did you know Sessions political career was almost over before it began? In episode one of Re...
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December 18, 2018 • 28 mins
Years before he was the U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions served as the Alabama Attorney General. And in that post, he faced a situation similar to the Russia investigation.
It involved a Republican governor, cries of a "witch hunt" and a marble shower stall. Listen to this episode to see the similarities between Sessions' handling of that case and the way he dealt with the Russia investigation.
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December 25, 2018 • 27 mins
In the 1980s and 1990s, Jeff Sessions fought political corruption and drug traffickers as a U.S. Attorney and Alabama attorney general. He didn't mention immigration until his first term in the U.S. Senate. It started with questions about special agent staffing, and ended with one of the most controversial immigration policies in American history.
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November 2, 2020 • 2 mins
Reckon Radio presents: “Unjustifiable,” an investigative series from Pulitzer-prize winning columnist John Archibald and Roy S. Johnson examining an overlooked moment of civil rights history in the heart of the South.
The story begins in 1979, when a police officer with a history of complaints shot and killed a 20-year-old Black woman named Bonita Carter. Her death would forever change the course of Birmingham, Alabama.
The lega...
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November 16, 2020 • 27 mins
June 22, 1979, just another evening in Birmingham Alabama, and Bonita Carter and her friends ride their bikes to a convenience store as the sun sets. What happened there would change their lives, and their cities forever. Chapter one of “Unjustifiable” reconstructs those events, moment by moment and step by step, from the vantage points of onlookers, participants, store workers, witnesses and police. By the end of the night, a poli...
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November 16, 2020 • 38 mins
Protest began to swell in Birmingham began to swell the night Bonita Carter was killed, and it grew larger and larger in the days that followed. Black people, who had marched for voting power and integrated water fountains and lunch counters a decade and a half before, took to the streets to condemn police violence from a department built by Bull Connor. The killing of Bonita Carter seemed to be the last straw, especially when the ...
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November 23, 2020 • 37 mins
What was it about the killing of Bonita Carter that sparked police reform? The search for that answer led the Reckon Radio team into the bowels of the Birmingham Public Library, to a recently discovered box of “Birmingham Police Shooting and Incident Cards.” These cards, seen by almost no one in decades, detail the lives of hundreds of people in Jefferson County, Alabama – the deaths of hundreds, killed by police and security offic...
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November 30, 2020 • 35 mins
The status quo was broken in Birmingham, Alabama, in the weeks after the Bonita Carter killing. The city once known as Bombingham, as the Johannesburg of the South, reeled from protests, and counter-protests from the Ku Klux Klan. A scientist, a former college dean named Richard Arrington who had long been aligned with that white progressive mayor, David Vann, broke away from the mayor to launch his own campaign. A committee formed...
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December 7, 2020 • 33 mins
Who is Officer George Sands? The Birmingham police officer had amassed more than a dozen complaints before fatally shooting Bonita Carter. He’d been seen as a problem by some city leaders, while others protected him – saying he was just a symptom of a poorly trained police department rather than a rogue bad apple?
Before being elected mayor, Richard Arrington had been shocked to learn Sands was Bonita Carter’s killer, for he had be...
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December 14, 2020 • 44 mins
The killing of Bonita Carter in 1979 changed Birmingham, and its leadership. Protests following her death forced the city to reshape its police department, four decades before Black Lives Matter made its greatest impact. It was a decade after Black civil rights leaders had gathered in Birmingham to make 14 points to their white peers in Birmingham, to demand acknowledgement that Black people were still treated as second class citiz...
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July 3, 2023 • 2 mins
This is the story of the surprising roots of the Black Panther and the election when America truly became a democracy.
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July 12, 2023 • 35 mins
It’s a story we think we know well. It’s 1965, and the Civil Rights Movement is in full swing. Thousands are marching on Montgomery, protesting the treatment of Black Americans. But what about the people who lived alongside that road? The people who remained after the national cameras and big names left town were the lifeblood of the movement for Black Power.
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July 12, 2023 • 34 mins
How did a county known as “Bloody Lowndes” become the birthplace of the Black Panther? Because the people of Lowndes met vicious, racist violence with a powerful response.
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