This is truly the stuff I wish I had learned in history class. Grateful that we can at least try to honor the victims by hearing their truth. Maybe someday we’ll actually learn from our mistakes… maybe more people will reflect upon what is the real danger in this country, see beyond the surface to shared humanity. Can our story be aligned with the values we supposedly believe in so strongly? What lies are we choosing to view as truth today, because they are simply more comforting, simple, alluring, more popular, more convenient, easier, or even legal? Can we use critical thinking and compassion instead, to do what we know deep down is right? Using courage, being informed, and using effective communication is a path we all have the option to take. Thank you for all of your hard work on this podcast. I learned so much that I can’t believe I was not aware of previously. Love!

I’m grateful to these journalists for the lengths they went to in their effort to solve the cold case of this murder. I’m grateful for the willingness of witnesses to finally go on record with the truth. And I’m grateful to Marie Reeb for her stunning compassion for the men who carried their guilt in the “freedom” of silence all these years. Thank you to all the truth tellers for helping bring us all out of the captivity of complicit silence. This story is our story, and we all need to hear it.

As a white southerner, I desperately need stories like this — deep reflection on how whiteness (and all it entails) shapes public and private memory, forgetting, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Highly recommend

Season 1 - In 1965, Reverend James Reeb — a Unitarian minister and civil-rights activist — was killed during the voting rights movement in Selma. This seven-part investigative podcast, hosted by native Alabamians Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace is incredible.

White Lies nails it again! Powerful, exhaustive and revealing reporting! Must listen podcast. Thanks for the dedication to telling these critical stories about our history.

A truly amazing example of the power of journalism. History lives in all of us.

I had never heard of the boat lift. As a lawyer, I wanted more on the prison hostage situation but ending up a better story than I realized existed

Please do more shopping like this one.

Very interesting, I very well narrated. However, the music does not offer drama as it is intended. Instead, it is loud and intrusive, way too long, and gets in the way of the story. Illuminate the music, and it would be five stars!

Very informative

It would have been wonderful to have been able to listen to this. The background music was so loud it’s impossible to enjoy.

You guys are story tellers extraordinaire. I totally enjoyed every episode and simply wanted this story to go on and on. The level of detail and investigative depth kept me hanging on every word. Your music was outstanding as well. Looking forward to the next rendering of these intriguing and most interesting narratives. I would like to send a shout out to Keith Woods who is a classmate of mine from Dillard University in NOLA.

I was raised in Virginia. We left when I was 12 and I was shocked to discover upon entering a Yankee middle school that the south had lost the Civil War. I thought it had been kind of like a draw. The anti-racism work that I learned in college at Michigan State University and that I did on my own after that eventually felt stale. My generations work felt like it had stopped at a point where it was no longer creative or truly moving toward a better place. It felt recycled -the same tropes, the same stories, the same unsatisfactory endings. This next level of journalism brought a way of looking at things that felt good to my soul. It's not that we are responsible for the crimes of past white generations, but that we bare the responsibility for knowing how we have what we have, and who made that possible for us. And how to pay forward the debts that we incurred along the centuries.

Wellll… was enjoying it and learning some history up until the end when in true NPR fashion, they had to bad mouth Trump and put their bias spin on what he said. Totally unnecessary to put their leftist propaganda in their commentary. And to think my tax dollars fund this nonsense.

These stories need to be told! Also, the hosts are funny, smart, and good interviewers, as well as easy to listen to. Although the material is heavy, they do a great job pulling the listener in and keeping us engaged. I will be listening to both seasons!

These stories need to be told. Thank you for your relentless pursuit of the truth. Please keep making these!

I often have to stop listening, cry and meditate before I could listen again….so heartbreaking! Good story telling! Very intense, it grabbed my attention and informed me .. I feel very grateful to have these type of podcast to learn about Real American History ... Recommend it highly..

The stories in both seasons 1 and 2 are exceptional combinations of painstaking investigative journalism and excellent storytelling. Impactful and powerful. Please keep up the great work.

So utterly impressed with the depth of both seasons of this podcast. What they are able to uncover, discover and report on is OUTSTANDING and the results are spell binding that makes me want to listen to without stopping! I listen while on long walks. As a child of the 60’s I am not surprised by what they have uncovered but I am impressed with their grit in getting the ultimate information. Makes me want to say I AM SORRY 😞 But all of us need to know and be enlightened 🙏

Wow. Both seasons blew me away. Such important journalism. Necessary accountability. Justice and transformation cannot occur without bringing these ugly truths to light. Thank you for your reporting and big love to all the survivors of the disgraceful injustices who are brave enough to share their stories.

I’ve listened to various historical podcasts for years and this is one that ranks among the best! Really great!

It’s the typical south!! I was born and raised in the south, but I was always taught that you are no better than the person next to you and that everyone was the same no matter of the skin color.. I’m just saying eye for an eye, but I am catholic so I have to forgive… I never comment on this, but man this is wow..

Great job. Thank you.

This was such a sad shameful event and time in the American South. That being said a story that needs to be told and not forgotten. The podcast is gripping and wonderful story telling. I’m glad the truth was finally told. Great interviewing

Impressed by the reporting and storytelling of episode 2. Disheartened by the story but so glad this is being shared. Thank you!

Found this when another show played the opener of season 2. Just went through all of season 1 in a day, it was so beautifully done. Fascinating to hear about the history of things I had never heard anything about yet! Well researched and sensitive.

It is so important to see where we came from to shape where we are headed. Thank you for finding the truth of what happened.

Season 1 was absolutely amazing and illuminating! It was fascinating listening to them put the pieces together and build relationships with witnesses, second hand accounts, and official accounts. Fantastically illuminated the sort of world that existed and how journalism works. Season 2 is asking a very specific question in a very complex setting which seems to be making everyone upset. They’re not investigating every aspect of the Cuban Revolution, the cause of the Cuban economic crises, and the US and USSR influences going on at the time. Their focus is on how the US treated the Cubans who came and how truthful the media was being at the time. I’ll trust them to dig into it at a later time but I’d appreciate some more explanation on WHY people were leaving. But overall, this team of journalists should be proud. They do a great job of digging for sources and gaining their trust to dig further into a good story.

They try to be unbiased but fail. Misconceptions abound about many of the political players, thus injecting political ideology inadvertently. I get it, but journalists must do better.

You can’t say we stand for the truth, and then lie. I am not a Trump supporter however, He didn’t say all immigrants are criminals. I understood when he said we didn’t know who people coming across the border are if they just come across illegally yes, they could be criminals. Why does that not make sense to you? You act like you don’t understand the most simplest thing if we do not know who someone is, they can be dangerous.I have my great grandparents paperwork when they came to this country in 1895 and it includes the documents that show who they are and where they’re from, Is it so hard to ask from people 100 years later?

So well done. It brought me to tears on many occasions. Thank you for telling this story.

Really well done. So respectful, so empathetic, so intelligent. I throughly enjoyed Season 1 and learned much along the way. It was very impactful and I look forward to another season with these reporters.

Listening to the second episode here, you’d have no idea that US imperial and gangster control of the island motivated the Revolution, that the CIA waged a terrorist campaign that necessitated those Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, or that the war in Angola was against US-backed apartheid South African scum. I guess it’s the typical ahistorical lib line, treating the listener like a dewey-eyed baby-brained dope. And I say this as someone who has repped detained Cubans in removal proceedings. Pathetic as a history lesson.

Such a perfect and respectful way to tell such a painful story. Sadly to see how many people are still in denial

Had to stop listening because the electronic background music was so annoying.

I love this podcast pulls you in every time. plus chip is one of my biggest crushes so I have to support my crush 😝

Thank Radiohead for this rating.

So glad this series is back!

Wow! The first episode is so compelling. In such a short time we are introduced to interesting people with important stories. I can’t wait for more. Best of all it is so well written!

I listened to the first episode 1 of season 2 because it was on the Rough Translation feed. I wasn’t paying my full attention because I was doing cardio and was rather tired, but at some point in the episode, it started doing the hype building formula from Serial season one by mixing a in medley random provocative/heart-wrenching quotes to suspenseful music, and I thought “Ok, it sounds like the episode is about to start now”. Then I looked at my phone, and what I thought had been the end of a surprisingly long 10-15 minute intro was the end of the first 45 minute episode. All I got from the first episode is that it’s about immigration to the USA, and they worked a long time to chase down a story that started out being out about X, but became something much more, and a whole bunch of other cliched podcast tropes. It seems like the content of what they’re going to discuss might be interesting and substantial, but I have no respect for a producer that would put out an 45 minute episode teaser trailer as the first episode that doesn’t say anything.

This is a vitally important story and I a greatly appreciate the reporting by the 2 authors. However, the disturbing and grating music is theatrical and unworthy of the rest of the work. Please release a version without the manipulative soundtrack. This story can stand on its own.

I couldn’t put this down. I found myself listening to it on my headphones in the grocery store. I highly recommend this series.

I recommended this podcast to every person I know.

A remarkable piece of journalism, storytelling, and history. Thank you for rescuing the past from the precipice of obscurity. This is a masterpiece—and more important today than ever.

The journalist hosts should be very proud of their work here. This is an important re-visiting and investigation of a life that mattered and of a crime that holds a weighty place in America’s civil rights history and its reckoning with its racism and injustice. It’s riveting and moving, and the closing reflection at the very end is so beautifully written.

This is an outstanding account of an important story.

Riveting, moving, humane

This podcast should be required listening for all good intentioned white people like me. It is honest, introspective, fair, and fact-based. It can be very hard to listen to, because it is honest, but that’s exactly why it’s necessary. This is a great piece of journalism.

Great podcast, one of the best I’ve listened to in a long while. I’ve read about this event, and seen representations of the story in the past. What makes your reporting stand out is the personal heartfelt accounts from people who lived it. The complexity of these stories, the impact that echos out across generations is heartbreaking and hopeful.

This is both exceptionally engaging and incredibly scary to understand that this was only 1965, not that long ago. I knew about James Reeb through Unitarian faith but didn’t know how deep the racism ran to cover up the truth about his death. And how that same types of conspiratorial narratives taken as fact may be spun on different issues today.