Our American Stories

On this episode of Our American Stories, Darryl Strawberry reached the heights of Major League Baseball, but success could not heal the wounds he carried from childhood. Raised with an abusive, alcoholic father, Strawberry says rejection and anger helped drive him toward greatness on the field while leaving him vulnerable to addiction, broken relationships, and a life that eventually spiraled far beyond his control.

Strawberry shares the story of how faith changed the course of his life, how his wife Tracy challenged him to stop defining himself by the uniform he once wore, and how forgiveness finally brought him face-to-face with the father who had hurt him most. Darryl's book is Turn Your Season Around: How God Transforms Your Life, be sure to check it out!

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Doc Holliday is one of the most famous figures of the American Old West, known for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his role in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Movies and television have turned him into a legend, but the real Doc Holliday was far more complicated than the popular portrayals suggest.

Historian Roger McGrath joins us to tell the true story of John Henry “Doc” Holliday—the Southern dentist who became a gambler, gunslinger, and enduring figure of frontier history.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, John Cazale never became a movie star. He never received an Academy Award nomination, and his film career lasted only six years. Yet Al Pacino considered him an acting idol, Meryl Streep fell in love with him, and every one of the five films he appeared in was nominated for Best Picture.

Jonjo Powers, author of A Small Perfection: John Cazale and the Art of Acting, shares the remarkable story of the man who brought Fredo Corleone to life, made some of Hollywood's greatest actors better, and died at just 42 years old with a nearly perfect body of work behind him.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Pat Boone was at the height of his career when television executives told him to cancel a guest. That guest was Harry Belafonte, the singer whose hit “Day-O” had made him famous around the world. Boone was warned that audiences in some parts of the country wouldn’t accept a Black artist on stage beside him. His answer was simple: if Belafonte wasn’t welcome, neither was he.

Boone recalls the night he chose integrity over career security and why that moment meant more than the show itself.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Joe DiMaggio became an American icon, but he was only one of three brothers who made it to the major leagues. Raised in a large Italian immigrant family near San Francisco, Vince, Joe, and Dom DiMaggio each defied their father’s hopes that they would become fishermen and instead chased a future in baseball.

Four-time New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin, author of The DiMaggios: Three Brothers, Their Passion for Baseball, Their Pursuit of the American Dream, shares the story of how Vince opened the door, Joe became a Yankees legend, and Dom carved out an All-Star career with the Boston Red Sox.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Chet Leuliette came home from World War II with little money and no high school diploma, but with a determination to build a better life for his family. He sold potato chips, raised his son in a home where money was often scarce, and quietly spent his life helping the people around him.

Former automotive executive Tim Leuliette remembers the father who would give up his own lunch so his son could buy the Weekly Reader, helped a child with birth defects receive treatment at a Shriners hospital, and never believed his own wartime wounds merited a Purple Heart when so many of his fellow soldiers had suffered worse. Chet never made more than $20,000 a year, but to Tim, he was one of the wealthiest men he ever knew.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Muniz was not yet five years old when heavy rain stranded his family overnight at an old railroad station in the mountains of northern New Mexico. When the storm finally cleared, everyone stepped outside beneath a sky crowded with stars to watch for Echo, one of America’s earliest communications satellites.

Richard remembers seeing that tiny point of light move silently across the heavens, while his father explained that some of the starlight above them had begun its journey before Richard was born. In that moment, a little boy’s world suddenly became much bigger, and decades later, the sight of a satellite can still bring him back to that night.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, Al Capone became the most famous gangster in America, but Laurence Bergreen argues that his rise would have been almost unimaginable without Prohibition. Born to an Italian immigrant family in Brooklyn, Capone found his opportunity in the vast underground economy created when the government outlawed alcohol, eventually rising to the top of Chicago’s criminal world while cultivating the public image of a businessman and local benefactor.

Bergreen, author of Capone: The Man and the Era, separates the man from the legend, tracing Capone’s rise, his conviction for tax evasion, his imprisonment at Alcatraz, and the neurosyphilis that devastated his health.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in the spring of 1961, McDonald County opened its highway map and discovered that it had simply vanished. The resort towns that depended on summer travelers were nowhere to be found, and what looked like a clerical mistake carried real consequences for the people who lived there. County leaders announced that McDonald County would symbolically secede from Missouri until someone paid attention.

Dwight Pogue was a teenager then, watching his neighbors create a makeshift border patrol, hand out mock visas, and treat the whole effort as both a stand and a celebration. Looking back, he remembers how a small county briefly turned itself into its own territory and how that unlikely season brought the community together in a way no one expected.

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On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1819, as the Missouri Crisis stirred national debate over slavery and westward expansion, a private conversation between John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun became something much larger. Calhoun defended slavery as a necessary institution. Adams left the conversation deeply shaken and newly committed to abolition. This moment would fuel his work after the presidency, where he became a leading voice against the Gag Rule and argued for the freedom of the Amistad captives.

Historians James Traub and Dr. Robert Elder share how a single exchange shaped one of the most important abolitionist legacies in American politics.

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