Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

(9-15-2022) Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, is a narrative appreciation of the Greenwich Village music scene of that decade -- in particular the glorious collision of music and message that created the protest song movement.

Even before the Beatnik Riots of 1961, New York City's Greenwich Village was the epicenter of revolutionary movements in American music and culture. But, in the early 1960s and throughout the decade, a new wave of writers and performers inspired by the folk music revival of the 1950s created socially aware and deeply personal songs that spoke to a generation like never before.

Join us when Richard Barone examines his book Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village in the 1960s on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

Author of Promises Betrayed, Jamil Hassan provides a first-hand account of the Afghanistan evacuation, all told from the unique perspective of an Afghan ally.

Having served as a translator for General David Petraeus and General John Nicholson in Afghanistan Jamil and his family were, and are, high-value targets for possible Taliban retribution. Jamil provides account of how he and his family, by the narrowest of margins, eventually made their way onto a plane and out of Kabul, on August 18, 2021.

Join us when Jamil Hassan examines Promises Betrayed, the story of America's "War on Terror" in Afghanistan, the Biden Administration's actions, and the Afghans who were left behind on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

(9-9-2022) Martin Luther King used news cameras as a means of exposing anti-Black violence by white mobs in the 1950s and 60s. Darnella Frazier used her phone to record and post the murder of

George Floyd by Derek Chauvin in May 2020.

These are just two of many people who have captured images of injustice for the world to see. The Prophetic Lens takes an important look at the use of the video camera as an indispensable prophetic tool for the security of Black lives and greater possibility for racial justice.

Join us when Phil Allen Jr. founder of the non-profit organization Racial Solidarity Project based in Los Angeles, CA. shares his passion for dialogue, resistance, and solutions to the problem of systemic racism which was fostered by his family and personal life experiences as well as his educational journey, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

Join us on Leonard Lopate at Large when the After Dinner Opera Company reviews the New York and Orchestral Staged Premiere of SACCO AND VANZETTI Begun by Marc Blitzstein. Completed & Conducted by Leonard Lehrman. Directed by Benjamin Spierman.

In 1921, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, both Italian-Americans, were convicted of robbery and murder. Although the arguments brought against them were mostly disproven in court, the fact that the two men were known radicals prejudiced the judge and jury against them.

(9/2/2022) In Freedomland, Annemarie H. Sammartino tells Co-op City's story from the perspectives of those who built it and of the ordinary people who made their homes in this monument to imperfect liberal ideals of economic and social justice.

Located on the grounds of the former Freedomland amusement park on the northeastern edge of the Bronx, Co-op City's 35 towers and 236 townhouses have been home to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and is an icon visible to all traveling on the east coast corridor.

In 1965, Co-op City was planned as the largest middle-class housing development in the United States. It was intended as a solution to the problem of affordable housing in America's largest city. While Co-op City first appeared to be a huge success story for integrated, middle-class housing, tensions would lead its residents to organize the largest rent strike in American history.

Join us when Annemarie H. Sammartino tells Co-op City's story from the perspectives of those who built it and of the ordinary people who made their homes in this monument to imperfect liberal ideals of economic and social justice on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

(9/1/2022) Robert "Bob" Hennelly is an award-winning, print and broadcast journalist. For more than 30 years, he has reported on a broad spectrum of major public policy questions, ranging from homeland security to the economy, environmental contamination to corruption, and occupational safety to homelessness.

Join us when Bob Hennelly shares his investigative work--focusing on national labor issues and public policy, occupational safety and health, the New York City politics and civil service on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

(8/30/2022)According to Socio-cultural Anthropologist Joshua Reno and Associate Professor of Anthropology Britt Britt Halvorson, many associate racism with the regional legacy of the South yet in fact, it is the Midwest that has upheld some of the nation’s most deep-seated convictions about the value of whiteness.

From Jefferson’s noble farmer to The Wizard of Oz, imagining the Midwest has quietly gone hand-in-hand with imagining whiteness as desirable and virtuous. Since at least the U.S. Civil War, the imagined Midwest has served as a screen or canvas, projecting and absorbing tropes and values of virtuous whiteness and its opposite, white deplorability, with national and global significance. Imagining the Heartland provides a poignant and timely answer to how and why the Midwest has played this role in the American imagination.

Join is when anthropologists Britt Halvorson and Josh Reno argue that there is an unexamined affinity between whiteness, Midwestness, and Americanness, anchored in their shared ordinary and homogenized qualities on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

(8-29-2022)Jacobin staff writer Luke Savage exposes the hollowness and futility of the liberal project in the 21st century, offering searing critiques of some of its leading figures, notably Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau, and touching on topics that extend over the milquetoast politics of the Biden presidency, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, the monopolists of Silicon Valley, and the worst excesses of cable news punditry. Join us when Luke Savage writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Statesman, The Washington Post, and The Guardian explores his new book The Dead Center on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.

Join us for a discussion when sibling language experts and regular contributors to the program Kathryn and Ross Petras. This language duo are authors of the bestselling You're Saying It Wrong: A Pronunciation Guide to the 150 Most Commonly Mispronounced Words—and Their Tangled Histories of Misuse and the hosts of a popular NPR podcast.

Kathryn & Ross Petras are the New York Times bestselling authors of You’re Saying It Wrong, as well as companion “word nerd” books That Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means and Awkword Moments, and numerous other non-fiction books. On this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large Kathy and Ross return to discuss language trends.

For over 20 years, Journalist Susan Hartman has been writing intimate stories about immigrants and their communities. Her book, City of Refugees, the Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town. Hartman shows how an influx of refugees helped revive Utica, New York, an old upstate manufacturing town that was nearly destroyed by depopulation and arson.

According to Susan Hartman Many Americans imagine refugees as threatening outsiders who will steal jobs or be a drain on the economy. But across the country, refugees are rebuilding and maintaining the American Dream. Hartman follows 3 of these newcomers over the course of 8 years as they and their families adjust to new lives in America.

Hartman was educated at Kirkland College and received an MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where she now teaches. She has taught journalism at Yale, NYU, and Barnard College.

Join us when Hartman examines City of Refugees is a complex and poignant story of a small city but also of America—a country whose promise of safe harbor and opportunity is knotty and incomplete, but undeniably alive.