Black History Month will come alive for your listeners with compelling offerings that chronicle the African American experience — from L.A. Theatre Works.

A Raisin in the Sun – One of the great seminal works of American theatre, Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play chronicles the Younger family on the south side of Chicago. Her compelling portrait of competing dreams earned Hansberry the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play at the age of 29. She became the youngest playwright and the first African-American to win that honor.
Starring Judyann Elder, Corey Hawkins, Deidire Henry, and Rutina Wesley (Tara in HBO’s True Blood).
Available: PRX, FTP (email for info)
Cost: PRX 590 points FTP – $60
Length: 01:57:58 (Can be played as two one-hour programs)

Unquestioned Integrity: The Hill-Thomas Hearings 20th Anniversary Special – (One-hour)”A national disgrace…a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves” as described by Clarence Thomas, or a public referendum on sexual harassment and other gender inequities in late twentieth-century America? Compiled from the official transcripts of the 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings.
Starring Edward Asner, Ella Joyce, and Paul Winfield
Available: PRX, FTP (email for info)
Cost: FREE
Length: 59:00

Also Available:

A Huey P. Newton Story – In this Obie Award-winning show by Roger Guenveur Smith, the life of the controversial Black Panther leader is brilliantly imagined through a series of improvisations based on Newton’s own words and writings.
Written, performed, and directed by Roger Guenveur Smith.
Available: PRX, FTP (email for info)
Cost: FREE
Length: 01:57:54 (Can be played as two one-hour programs)

Ruby McCollum – In 1952, in a small town in Florida, a wealthy African-American woman named Ruby McCollum shot and killed a respected white physician, ostensibly over a bill. Her true motives came to light during her murder trial, which made national headlines. The story is a true-life case, and the stuff of a Southern Gothic novel, complete with interracial romance, drug abuse, mental illness, and the racist attitudes of the Jim Crow South. Starring Paul Winfield and Loretta Devine
Available: PRX, FTP (email for info)
Cost: FREE
Length: 01:57:58 (Can be played as two one-hour programs)

Available for the one year anniversary of the Jan 25 – Feb 11 2011 uprising

In this new one-hour public radio show from Human Rights Watch and Hearing Voices, participants in the people’s revolution give first hand accounts of their historic 18 days in Tahrir Sqaure and discuss the challenges they face in a post-Mubarak Egypt.

Heba Morayef, Cairo-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, who filed regular iPhone-audio reports live from Tahir Square hosts this comprehesive collection of interviews, live music, and sound recorded at the protests. Listeners will hear labor union leaders, musicians, human rights workers, street cleaners, and social media activists.

COST: FREE
LENGTH: ONE HOUR
AVAILABLE: CONTENT DEPOT, PRX

Voices from Tahrir will air on Hearing Voices and The Story,
it is also available to any other stations that are interested in airing it.

WIRED FOR THOUGHT

A cup of coffee can leave you wired for the day. But a chip in your brain could wire you to a machine forever. Imagine manipulating a mouse without moving a muscle, and doing a Google search with your mind. Welcome to the future of the brain-machine interface.

Don your EEG thinking-cap, and discover a high-tech thought game that may be the harbinger of machine relationships to come.

Plus, the ultimate mapping project: the Human Connectdome Project aims to identify all the neural pathways in the human brain. It may help us understand what makes us human, but could it also point the way to making us smarter?

And, what all this brain research reveals about the mind and free will – who, or what, is really in charge?

Guests:

• Jan Rabaey – Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), University of California, Berkeley
• Arthur Toga – Neurologist at the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, and researcher on the Human Connectome Project
• Michael Gazzaniga – Neuroscientist, director of the University of California Santa Barbara’s SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, and author of Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
• Bradley Voytek – Neuroscientist, University of California, San Francisco

LISTEN to the episode HERE

ADD Big Picture Science to your weekly schedule now!

FORD ENABLES VOICE CONTROL OF NPR APP DELIVERING IN-CAR, ON-DEMAND ACCESS TO NEWS, PROGRAMS AND STATIONS

NPR’S ENTRY INTO INTERNET ENABLED CARS WITH FORD MARKS A FIRST AMONG NEWS ORGANIZATIONS

The SYNC® AppLink™-enabled NPR News app lets Ford drivers listen to their favorite public radio programs and stations on their own schedule while on the road

Users can create playlists of stories and programs to listen to later or select from topics and then call them up with simple voice commands.

The NPR app is immediately available through Ford Sync on a range of 2012 model Ford vehicles including Fiesta, Mustang, F150, Fusion and Focus.

Sound Beat has renewed their contract with Creative PR.

In less than a year after its debut, Sound Beat can be heard daily on over 80 radio stations throughout the U.S.
We are proud to be a part of the Sound Beat team!

Sound Beat is a daily, 90 second show highlighting  the holdings of the Belfer Audio Archive.  The Belfer is part of the Syracuse University Library, and with over half a million recordings, is one of the largest sound archives in the United States. Each SB episode focuses on one particular recording from the Archive, and provides a back story detailing its place in recording history.

For more information about Sound Beat, visit their website:  soundbeat.org