Due South's Leoneda Inge talks with Alice Randall, author of “My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present and Future.” And we welcome the future! Award-winning folk and country music artists Rhiannon Giddens and Rissi Palmer tell us how they’ve made it this far in the biz.

Alice Randall, Rhiannon Giddens, and Rissi Palmer will be in Durham later this week for Biscuits and Banjos – a music festival curated BY Rhiannon Giddens. Biscuits and Banjos runs April 25-27 in downtown Durham. Today’s conversation originally aired in April 2024. 

Featuring:

Alice Randall, author of My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future

Rhiannon Giddens, singer, musician and music historian

Rissi Palmer, country and Americana recording artist and host of the Apple Music Podcast, Color Me Country

Who has access to homeownership in North Carolina?
Spring is typically home buying time, but housing affordability concerns combined with general economic uncertainty may mean that even fewer people in the Triangle are looking or able to buy homes. News & Observer real estate journalist Chantal Allam joins co-host Jeff Tiberii to talk about the homeownership gap, the history of restrictive covenants in our region, and who has access to homeownership in North Carolina now.
Chantal Allam, Real Estate Journalist, The Raleigh News & Observer

Some Triangle residents turn to ‘co-living’ and ‘co-buying,’ rather than face affordable housing crunch alone
With no end in sight to the affordable housing crisis, renters, buyers, and developers are exploring new ways to create places to call home. Axios reporters Zachery Eanes and Brianna Crane have been reporting on “co-living” and “co-buying” as a way to reduce housing costs for individuals.
Zachery Eanes, reporter, Axios
Brianna Crane, reporter covering real estate for Axios, based in Charlotte

The curb appeal of Modernist homes, and the Millennials who are tearing them up
Why online Gen Z folks hate Millennials’ tendency to turn the inside of modernist homes “gray and boring.” How to protect historic homes from natural disasters, and an effort to restore Modernist homes lost in the California wildfires.
George Smart, founder and CEO of USModernist and NCModernist, the world's largest nonprofit educational archive dedicated to the documentation, preservation, and promotion of Modernist residential design 

Commerce and economic leaders in North Carolina say many large companies are in a holding pattern, waiting to make decisions on new factories, or other major investments. 

During Reconstruction, a community of free Black residents formed a “kingdom” in Western North Carolina. They called it “Happy Land.” Novelist Dolen Perkins Valdez’s new book of the same name gives a fictionalized account of this little-known Appalachian history.

And, a book about fixing the problems that lead to Black women facing death and disease at disproportionate rates in our current health care system.

Guests

Zachary Eanes, reporter Axios Raleigh 

Dolen Perkins-Valdez, assistant professor of literature at American University and New York Times best-selling author  

Wylin D. Wilson, Associate Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University

The latest update in NC's Supreme Court race
We get an update on the still-undecided election for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Judges recently broke with precedent in upholding a lower-court ruling. Still, the saga is not over. Next stop: federal court. WUNC’s Rusty Jacobs fills us in. 
Rusty Jacobs, Voting and Election Integrity Reporter, WUNC  

‘Why it's so hard to find a good couch’ from WUNC's podcast The Broadside
Ahead of the High Point Spring Market, a look into the ways the furniture manufacturing industry has changed in recent decades, and the ways that has affected the quality of furniture, and the economics of building it here in North Carolina.

Major the Bull turns 21!
Durham’s beloved bovine icon Major the Bull turns 21 this year. We sit down with its sculptors, Michael Waller and Leah Foushee Waller, to discuss how the popular city mascot found its way to the seat of popular culture. 
Michael Waller and Leah Foushee Waller, sculptors of Major the Bull, founders of WallerFoushee Studios

Due South’s Leoneda Inge talks with Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz, an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and director of the Native Policy Lab at the University of Iowa, about her recently published book, The Indian Card: Who Gets to be Native in America.

Then, NC A&T professor Leah Barlow made a TikTok for the 35 students in her Intro to African American Studies class. It ended up reaching millions and inspired an online network of Black educators providing free lectures called “HillmanTok.” (This encore interview originally aired in March 2025.)

The remains of a North Carolina WWII veteran return home
The remains of one of the final victims of the Pearl Harbor bombing have been identified and brought to North Carolina. Neil Frye was 20 years old, and serving as a Mess Attendant 3rd Class in the Navy on the USS West Virginia. For decades, his relatives wanted final confirmation that Frye died, but until recently his remains had not been identified.
Jay Price, Military reporter for WUNC

The town of Fountain is the latest stop on our Main Street NC Series
Fountain is a small town in eastern North Carolina, about halfway between Wilson and Greenville. But even though it's home to just 400 or so residents, Fountain has a rousing arts scene.  

Charlotte’s transportation hopes rise with city council member's elevation to federal position
Tariq Bokhari is a bit of a character in local politics. Brash, ‘Trump-like,’ he’s moving up and to Washington. How it shows the NCGOP influence on the White House, and what it could mean for transportation funding to projects in NC and nationwide.
Steve Harrison, Politics Reporter for WFAE

On the NC News Roundup... We take a look at the local economic impact of fast-paced tariff developments, check in on state legislative happenings and discuss why Tax Day has been extended in  North Carolina. Co-host Jeff Tiberii talks with a panel of journalists about those stories and more, on Due South. Guests: Dawn Vaughan, Capital Bureau Chief, News & Observer; Lynn Bonner, Investigative Reporter, NC Newsline; Adam Wagner, Editor/Reporter, NC Newsroom; Reuben Jones, Spectrum News Washington Reporter

The latest in the ongoing saga over NC’s Supreme Court seat. What Republican Jefferson Griffin’s win (for now) with the state appeals court means, and what happens next.

With the fast-approaching, sold-out live taping at DPAC, Peter Sagal needs all the help he can get to prepare. Thankfully, he’s got a one-on-one study session with Due South’s Leoneda Inge. But he better get ready, because she’s got a news quiz of her own for him…

And, the Environmental Protection Agency's largest facility in Research Triangle Park has several hundred workers. Current and former researchers warn that deep cuts to the agency’s research arm could be 'devastating' for environmental policy decisions.

Guests

Rusty Jacobs, Voting and Election Integrity Reporter at WUNC

Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s News Quiz show Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me

Chris Frey, Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure, College of Engineering at NC State University, former EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development (ORD)    

Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, retired EPA science advisor who worked at the agency for more than 40 years, starting in 1981.

Lush language abounds in local naturalist’s book about the ‘Wild South’ 
Spring in the South brings a bevy of sights and sounds. In her new book, naturalist and writer Georgann Eubanks chronicles fifteen natural phenomena from across the region that are simultaneously routine and breathtaking. Eubanks talks with Due South’s Leoneda Inge about The Fabulous Ordinary: Discovering the Natural Wonders of the Wild South.
Georgann Eubanks, author of The Fabulous Ordinary: Discovering the Natural Wonders of the Wild South

Duke and UNC among top ten in NPR's College Podcast Challenge 
NPR's College Podcast Challenge will be announcing its grand prize winner later this month and the ten finalists include two Triangle locals–Jordan Phillips, a Duke University student majoring in Public Policy, and Sonia Rao, a recent UNC-Chapel Hill graduate. Due South’s Leoneda Inge talks with them about their podcast topics and shared themes around belonging and community.
Jordan Phillips, Duke University student  
Sonia Rao, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate

How a political power grab led to unprecedented control of funds for sexual abuse survivor programs in NC
A budget move by Republican lawmakers in North Carolina redirected funding for sexual assault victims “away from Democratic-led agencies that had long overseen such money,” ProPublica reports. 
Doug Bock Clark, reporter in ProPublica’s South Unit.

Hummingbird season begins in NC
If you’re a bird watcher or even just someone with a keen eye, you may spot those fast-fluttering wonders – hummingbirds. For those listeners who want to see more hummingbirds - maybe even by attracting them to your backyard or balcony – we have a special guest today.
Susan Campbell, licensed hummingbird bander, lead hummingbird researcher, co-founder of the Cape Fear Bird Observatory

A new initiative aims to archive HBCU radio station history
There are just over 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States, and a third of them have radio stations on campus. Today, there’s a massive effort underway to preserve and assess the audio collections at these HBCU radio stations – and to help reformat collections, to keep this history intact for generations to come.
Jocelyn Robinson, Founder and Director of the HBCU Radio Preservation Project