Celebrating Pride Month and Juneteenth on WPSU-FM
Here are descriptions of the special programs WPSU has in store for Pride Month and Juneteenth during the month of June.
Building a Queer Life in the Country
(Thursday, June 11, 3:00 p.m.)
This Pride Month special tells the story of Rae Garringer, who grew up on a sheep farm in rural West Virginia. Once they left for college and came out as queer, they weren't sure they could ever move back. They believed the story they’d been told: to thrive as an out, LGBTQ+ person, you have to live in a city. But when Rae did move back to rural West Virginia in 2011, they realized that story was a lie.
Rae talks to host Anita Rao about making queer life work in the country – from navigating dating challenges to getting along with neighbors you disagree with. They also talk about stories from Rae’s oral history project, podcast and book, “Country Queers,” which documents queer, rural life in 21 states around the country.
This special program is part of the podcast, “Embodied,” produced by public media station WUNC in North Carolina.
A Juneteenth Special: Fred Gray, James Lawson, and Willie James Jennings
(Thursday, June 18, 3:00 p.m. & Friday, June 19 at 8:00 p.m.)
Juneteenth celebrates the day that the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation was given in Texas, officially making slavery illegal in the U.S. But what factors led to the worldview that condoned slavery in the first place, and how might those factors still be affecting the country today?
In this special episode from the public radio series, “No Small Endeavor,” three prominent black voices discuss such issues in depth. Martin Luther King Jr.’s attorney Fred Gray discusses his work against segregation in the South, particularly in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yale professor & Baptist minister Willie James Jennings describes the religious and cultural origins of racism. And James Lawson, considered by many as one of the architects of the civil rights movement, explains how he and other leaders came to believe that the only way to effectively desegregate the nation was through non-violent protest.
Black, Queer and Free
(Thursday, June 25, 3:00 p.m.)
This Pride Month special comes from the series, "The Stoop: Stories from Across the Black Diaspora,” from Radiotopia and PRX. Hosts Hana Baba and Leila Day explore three stories about being Black and queer, centering queerness and spirituality, Black drag culture, and shifting relationship structures through polyamory. Through it all, the episode guests had to wrestle with disapproval from their communities and sift through feelings of being outcasts- to eventually accept themselves.