Community Forums
Listening Between the Lines facilitates discussions in all types of communities. We’ve designed our audio documentaries for use to stimulate critical thinking and idea-exchange about the historical roots of current issues.
- We encourage broadcasters and others to use our programs and excerpts from them in talk-shows and other forums.
- Join the forums on this website with your own comments, questions, mini-essays and observations.
- We also invite you to help us develop and improve our Discussion Guide with lesson plans and other such materials.
Race issues can be difficult to discuss, so focusing on the past can make discussion less threatening, by considering events removed from our daily lives. Public discussions can lead to racial reconciliation within communities, as in Wilmington (below) and Charleston (2015) North Carolina. In our programs, the authentic oral histories—as examples of lived experience—and experts’ debates are meant to acknowledge and validate listeners’ own beliefs and perceptions. At the same time, discussion-participants can receive contrasting views in a credible but non-threatening context.
Here are some examples:
Wilmington — Are We Making Progress?
March 22, 2001. Originally broadcast live on WHQR-FM in Wilmington NC, this panel discussion explored the legacy of Wilmington’s “race riots” of 1898 and 1971. Produced in partnership with the 1898 Centennial Foundation Inc.
A Wilmington Circle
February 21, 2002 | Recorded at WHQR in Wilmington North Carolina, based on the well-known “study circles” format, in partnership with the YWCA of the Lower Cape Fear.
One of our programs, Media and Myths, explores how the news media handled race issues throughout the entire period “between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.” It’s especially formatted for use in Race and Reconciliation dialogues in classroom and community settings, by media professionals, students, and citizens alike.
In/Migration, Culture and Conflict
Finding a Common Path
Produced and broadcast October 16, 2000 on WMNF-FM Community Radio, Tampa: Florida has always beckoned to newcomers, whether entering overseas or overland. From the peoples now known as “Seminoles” to the “snow-birds” and “undocumented immigrants” of today, how has the host-society dealt with incomers? Finding a Common Path is based on the Common Path documentary. It’s based on Listening Between the Lines “Document and Debate” format of using prerecorded discussions from experts to spark discussions.
Finding a Common Path
October 22, 2000 Originally broadcast on WMNF-FM community radio in Tampa Florida, as a two-hour live program using Listening Between the Lines’ “document and debate” approach.