CoastLine: Recent Episodes
Rachel Lewis Hilburn
CoastLine is a variety interview, arts, and occasional news show, hosted by Rachel Lewis Hilburn.Each week on CoastLine, we meet extraordinary humans -- scholars, writers, dancers, artists, comedians, scientists -- and we take a deep dive into their extraordinary ideas and lives.Subscribe to the CoastLine podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. To find the podcast, search WHQR CoastLine. Contact us at coastline@whqr.org.CoastLine airs on WHQR 91.3 FM each Wednesday at noon and each Sunday from 2 to 3 PM.
A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World: Tales of Fire, Wind, and Water, is the newest book from nature writer and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner. His daughter, Hadley, is an undergraduate at New York University. They join us to explore what climate science tells us about the prospect of a hotter, drier, more storm-prone, less livable planet by 2063, the year she turns 60.
Climate change is coming for life on earth – in the form of floods, more severe and destructive storms, drought, ocean acidification, marine and terrestrial heat waves, water supply problems, air pollution. The list goes on, but humans can adapt, mitigate, and maybe even survive.That's the focus of Dr. Orrin Pilkey's newest book, Escaping Nature: How to Survive Global Climate Change.
When Lenny Simpson was just 5 years old, tennis great Althea Gibson handed him a tennis racket and called him "champ". That moment changed his life. He went on at age 15 to play his mentor Arthur Ashe in the U.S. Open. Lenny Simpson returned to Wilmington in 2013 and launched One Love Tennis in honor of the mentors who did so much to help him live into his potential.
Singer / songwriter Tift Merritt and visual artist Thomas Sayre explore the unorthodox making of an upcoming show at the Cameron Art Museum called Four Walls.In this episode, Sayre raises questions about the sacred structures that undergird society, Tift Merritt interrogates the form of concert, and CAM Executive Director Heather Wilson explains why the ongoing challenge to previously-accepted concepts is part of her job.
Since 1961, the Peace Corps, envisioned and created by President John F. Kennedy, has sent volunteers around the globe to help developing countries. The obvious aim is to meet the goals identified by the host country – not the Americans. But just as important are the relationships that develop from this work, promoting world peace and friendship.
"Mahatma Gandi said the way you measure a society is how they treat the weakest in the society."Maad Abu-Ghazalah says this is why he started rescuing abused and abandoned dogs and donkeys in the West Bank. As a Palestinian-American with family still there, he explores his culture and his hopes for peace.
He won a spot on Blake Shelton's last team in 2023, after caving to family pressure to audition for the NBC show. And that's when the way Carlos Rising thought about his musical talent began to shift.
Breaking The News was supposed to be a documentary about a new nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom called The 19th, started by two women who wanted to cover news at the intersection of gender, politics, and policy. But when The 19th launched in early 2020, so did an international pandemic. The way the filmmakers had to film changed. And the story they thought they were telling also changed.
UNCW restoration ecologist Amy Long is rehabilitating local tidal marshes, grasslands, and savannahs. Strategic restoration can bring back biodiversity that was nearly lost, as evidenced by the New Hanover County Landfill property. Two dramatic examples: diverse butterfly populations and regular sightings of bald eagles.
Research clearly shows that spending time in nature is critical for mental, physical, even cognitive health. Can our mental health crises make a stronger case for conservation?
A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World: Tales of Fire, Wind, and Water, is the newest book from nature writer and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner. His daughter, Hadley, is an undergraduate at New York University. They join us to explore what climate science tells us about the prospect of a hotter, drier, more storm-prone, less livable planet by 2063, the year she turns 60.
Evolutionary Ecologist Stacy Endriss of UNCW’s Environmental Sciences Department is exploring how invasive plants are affecting North Carolina wetlands. She’s also looking at creative approaches – including biocontrol – for dealing with the impacts.
“A fundamental question that each of us must answer is: Who are the victims of racism? Upon careful investigation, it seems quite clear that the answer is ‘everyone’.” Dr. Catherine Meeks, Exec. Director, Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing
Andy Wood: Bullfrog tadpoles have an alkaloid in their skin. It’s a chemical compound that tastes a little bit like rotten lemon and Ajax. It’s a horrible taste, so very few things eat them.RLH: Have you tried this? It’s a very, um, specific description.AW: I would never admit that.In the wild coastal plain of southeastern NC, Andy Wood and I explore the wildness of suburban stormwater management ponds. What we find is, no surprise, quite a surprise.
"Mahatma Gandi said the way you measure a society is how they treat the weakest in the society."Maad Abu-Ghazalah says this is why he started rescuing abused and abandoned dogs and donkeys in the West Bank. As a Palestinian-American with family still there, he explores his culture and his hopes for peace.
The most vulnerable populations around the region struggled during 2023 – including humans, animals, and even native plants. What does the state of these groups say about us?
Enviva company officials assured critics that wood pellets are mostly made of waste: treetops, limbs, even sawdust. Not true, according to reporting from environmental journalist and WFU Professor Justin Catanoso, who also says the science shows wood pellet burning contributes more to the climate crisis than burning coal.
Alice Brooks says when she learned that her son, Darien, had profound autism spectrum disorder, she cried on the front porch all night. Today, she says Darien and his diagnosis are the greatest blessings of her life.
Cooking food, working as nurses, working in maintenance and repair units, dressing as men: for millennia, women have worked near and actually on the battlefield. But they still make up less than a quarter of the active U.S. military force, and they still face career barriers.Despite fear of retaliation in the face of misogyny, three local female veterans, Deborah Dicks Maxwell, Marcia Morgan, and Veronica Carter, say they're proud of the times they spoke up for their rights and dignity.
Black Barbie, the documentary film by Lagueria Davis, explores the way the doll shapes culture, and ultimately the way people think about themselves. It’s a close look at representation, starting with the filmmaker's aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, who was on the original Barbie manufacturing line with Mattel and played a key role in bringing Black Barbie to life.
"Everybody that goes to combat, it touches them in a certain way. It's hard to talk about some of those things."Marine Corps veteran Steven Shortt says so many like him want to connect with civilians, especially given the growing divide between the military and civilian communities. But when one of your core values is serving a mission larger than yourself, it gets weird.
What makes history come alive? When you can see repercussions, for good or for ill, in the present day. It’s why North Carolina state historian LeRae Umfleet, the author of the state’s official report on Wilmington’s 1898 massacre and coup d'état, keeps talking about it.
The history of standup comedy is so difficult to separate according to culture, that it becomes surprisingly transcendent of race, ethnicity, and cultural background. But does that equate to being a model of diversity, equity, and inclusion? That’s a work in progress and one of the questions we explore.
Andy Wood: Bullfrog tadpoles have an alkaloid in their skin. It’s a chemical compound that tastes a little bit like rotten lemon and Ajax. It’s a horrible taste, so very few things eat them.RLH: Have you tried this? It’s a very, um, specific description.AW: I would never admit that.In the wild coastal plain of southeastern NC, Andy Wood and I explore the wildness of suburban stormwater management ponds. What we find is, no surprise, quite a surprise.
Blues musician Robert Lighthouse may have grown up in Sweden, but as soon as he turned 18 he came to the United States to live with a native American family on a Hopi reservation and learn about his beloved Mississippi Delta Blues. He had no idea that decades later, he'd travel to a war zone to make music for people living with daily terror. He also had no idea how profoundly that trip would affect him.
Iliana Regan is owner and chef of The Milkweed Inn – a rustic, woodsy, and hard-to-reach getaway in the Hiawatha National Forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She’s also a Michelin starred chef and the author of two books. On this episode, how she thinks about gender – especially her own, how she deals with fear and why people are scary, and what she found on a foraging trip through the saltwater marshes of southeastern North Carolina.
Both Cliff Cash and Nancy Witter are professional comedians, have played to sold-out houses across these United States, and call the Cape Fear region home. On this episode they explore the craft of comedy and how it's evolved for them.
In each episode of In The Wild Coastal Plain, we meet a plant or an animal endemic to the southeastern North Carolina biodiversity hotspot – so we can better understand our coastal plain ecosystem and who lives here with us.Today, we’re exploring Holly Shelter, a nature preserve and game land in Pender County that boasts tens of thousands of acres -- one of the last great pieces of connected natural area in southeastern North Carolina. That’s because humans are rapidly building all around it.
Environmental justice can be complicated. The way studies are set up, the way the researchers communicate with the subjects of the study, and what the scientists do with the results – all those protocols are part of what Dr. Britt Moore calls “culturally-responsive science”.
Environmental justice can be complicated. The way studies are set up, the way the researchers communicate with the subjects of the study, and what the scientists do with the results – all those protocols are part of what Dr. Britt Moore calls “culturally-responsive science”.
“A fundamental question that each of us must answer is: Who are the victims of racism? Upon careful investigation, it seems quite clear that the answer is ‘everyone’.” Dr. Catherine Meeks, Exec. Director, Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing
Black Barbie, the documentary film by Lagueria Davis, explores the way the doll shapes culture, and ultimately the way people think about themselves. It’s a close look at representation, starting with the filmmaker's aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, who was on the original Barbie manufacturing line with Mattel and played a key role in bringing Black Barbie to life.
Kevin Maurer, an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author has written extensively about and inside war zones. When he heard of the mysterious disappearance of retired Marine and Wilmington resident Grady Kurpasi during a Russian ambush in Ukraine, he started investigating. That led to an article about the extraordinary life and death of Grady Kurpasi in Rolling Stone Magazine. Former Marine and close friend Don Turner also joins us to shed light on Grady's disappearance and the efforts to bring him home.
Down Here We Come Up, which took more than fifteen years to write, started as an exploration of the jarring class differences between the northern and southern United States. But the novel Sara Johnson Allen actually completed, set just outside of Wilmington, NC, raises even deeper questions about what defines family and a home place, and whether ancestral ties are enough.
As natural areas disappear, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. In this second episode, we explore the intertwined fates of the red-cockaded woodpecker and longleaf pine.
As natural areas disappear, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new CoastLine series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. On this edition of CoastLine, we explore why the intertwined fates of the red-cockaded woodpecker and longleaf pine are important harbingers of the area's fate.
Alice Brooks says when she learned that her son, Darien, had profound autism spectrum disorder, she cried on the front porch all night. Today, she says Darien and his diagnosis are the greatest blessings of her life.
Summer is a busy time in southeastern North Carolina for wildlife rehabilitators. It is against the law to take a wild animal into captivity unless you have a license from the state. But well-meaning people do this, often without understanding how they're probably doing more harm than good.
Andy Wood: "Beavers are an ally for maintaining water quality, air quality, biodiversity, and flood protection. One beaver pond can retain millions of gallons of stormwater, slowly releasing it into the stream so that downstream homes aren't suddenly flooded with a rush of water."There's so much to learn about this animal that many developers consider a pest.
As natural areas disappear in southeastern North Carolina, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. Andy Wood is our guide, and in this edition of CoastLine, we explore how it came to be and why the American Beaver is a keystone species (not a pest).
When most Americans see a large alligator, they see a menace. When filmmaker Montana Cypress sees one, he respects the potential danger. But he grew up seeing his fellow Miccosukee Tribe members work with alligators in front of audiences in the Florida Everglades. Tourists call it wrestling, but Montana sees a profound connection between human and animal.
When birds started dying from known and mysterious diseases, biologists told us backyard bird feeders pose risks to birds that include disease, collision, and predation. Jill Peleuses of Wild Bird & Garden and Cape Fear Bird Observatory explains how to mitigate those risks and actually help our local and visiting birds.
What does it mean to get sucked into the school-to-prison pipeline? Jamir Jumoke describes traumatic early years and what it took to break the cycle.
NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg visited Wilmington, NC in late May 2023. Two interviews, one in front of several hundred people, one in WHQR's CoastLine studio, reveal the origins of the NPR sound, a fiercely rigorous journalist, and a voraciously curious woman who injects humor into almost anything.
One photojournalist from North Carolina influenced the civil rights struggle in the United States, enjoyed a friendship with President Richard Nixon, was a member of the first African American press delegation on an official U.S. diplomatic trip overseas, and descended from one of the victims of the Wilmington 1898 coup d’etat. Alexander Rivera, Jr. also lit a fire in the imagination of UNCW History Professor Glen Harris, who wrote his biography: Social Justice and Liberation Struggles: The photojournalistic and public relations career of Alexander McAllister Rivera Junior
So many who brave dangerous treks across unfriendly terrain and tumultuous oceans to escape war, violence, and poverty find themselves stuck in camps that do not satisfy the most basic human needs: sanitation, enough food, dry clothes. Author Dana Sachs explains how a grassroots volunteer effort has sprung up where governments and NGOs have failed.
Blues musician Robert Lighthouse may have grown up in Sweden, but as soon as he turned 18 he came to the United States to live with a native American family on a Hopi reservation and learn about his beloved Mississippi Delta Blues. He had no idea that decades later, he'd travel to a war zone to make music for people living with daily terror. He also had no idea how profoundly that trip would affect him.
He calls them the Seven Natural Wonders of southeastern North Carolina. Can you guess what they are? We live in a biodiversity hotspot – for now, anyway — and environmental scientist Roger Shew is hoping that the more people learn about these natural wonders, the more they’ll care about saving them.
Iliana Regan is owner and chef of The Milkweed Inn – a rustic, woodsy, and hard-to-reach getaway in the Hiawatha National Forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She’s also a Michelin starred chef and the author of two books. On this episode, how she thinks about gender – especially her own, how she deals with fear and why people are scary, and what she found on a foraging trip through the saltwater marshes of southeastern North Carolina.
Our Father, the Devil is Ellie Foumbi's first feature film, and she has a distribution deal. The Tribeca Film Festival calls the lead performances "Oscar-worthy" — in a story that explores trauma, what forgiveness means, and whether anything is unforgiveable.
In 1998, Jerry Cribbs took a risk and started a choral group that performs two free, high-quality concerts a year. 25 years later, a new artistic director takes the helm, Dr. Aaron Peisner, as Cape Fear Chorale – Jerry’s original vision – is going strong.
Legions of people have tried to bridge gaps – gaps between political opposites, between the genders, between generations, and among races. Some have varying levels of success, for a time. But what happens when the structured conversations go away? Do people continue their connections? One local effort seems to be fostering real friendships among people of different backgrounds and races.
Gay or trans kids are at infinitely higher risk of harm if rejected by the adults around them. In ultra-conservative churches that condemn LGBTQ+ identities, parents often have to decide between their child and their church community. But a group of women that call themselves the Mama Bears is seeking to change that. Filmmaker Daresha Kyi joined us to talk about the power of Mama Bear love.
Finding sand for beach renourishment is a never-ending quest for beach towns. Could Frying Pan Shoals be the answer? BOEM is paying for a study of the shoals as the National Marine Fisheries Service worries dredging could harm this essential fish habitat.
Why is Burgaw likely to get a hot new restaurant in the near future? How do you learn to be a tree farmer in a few short years? And how much money is enough? These are some of the questions we explore with social entrepreneur Richard Johnson, who made his fortune in the dot-com era, retired to Wilmington, NC, and has his revitalization sights set on a tiny town in Pender County, population about 3000.
Black History Month brings a raised awareness of people left out of America’s mainstream historical narrative. It can generate much-needed discussion of current areas of inequality among the races. But so often the burden for leading these explorations lands on the shoulders of our Black teachers, historians, and leaders. Not on this episode. Listen to two white people, Professor Kim Cook and Jim Downey, undertake the work with humility and some inevitable awkwardness.
The mission of the Carlisle Industrial School: “Kill the Indian” and “Save the Man.” We're learning more about so-called boarding schools from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, engineered by white men to educate Native American children. While the stories are a new component of American history for white people, the trauma they perpetrated spans generations. Geoff O'Gara made a film about one of the affected tribes.
Land degradation is a serious problem in Africa as fertile grasslands get drier and thorny vegetation with deeper roots takes over. Wildlife and domesticated livestock alike have fewer places to graze – which, of course affects humans. But desertification is not the only form of land degradation. Deforestation and destroying wetlands are other forms. And that’s happening right here in the Cape Fear region.
Tom Ericson closed his well-loved garden supply store, The Transplanted Garden, in 2022 for personal reasons. But he's sharing his expertise on what to plant in the (slightly!) colder winter months, what your winter garden to-do list should look like, and why pruning hydrangeas can remove the coming blooms.
The Cape Fear region sees its share of human trafficking thanks, in part, to the tourism economy. And as reports of cases rise in NC, local nonprofit leaders hope to educate the public about the signs.
"Healing is hard. But you're not alone anymore. Keep going." It's a note that Ana Shellem wrote to herself about healing from serious childhood trauma that included sexual abuse, eating disorders, and psychological abuse and neglect. She's now a sought-after commercial fisherman supplying oysters, clams, mussels, stone crabs and the occasional whelk to superstar chefs in NC. She's also a Marine Fisheries Commissioner, appointed by Governor Roy Cooper.
Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers were in their 20s but had the audacity to lug around heavy video cameras and lighting equipment. Through their relentless embrace of their passion for punk, these two women wound up creating a comprehensive video catalog of important punk icons. They accomplished all this in a male-dominated, aggressive, and sometimes violent milieu.
Why are so many holiday traditions, religious and secular, celebrated during the darkest time of the year? Religious Scholar Dr. Herbert Berg explains. And two local chefs — Dean Neff of Seabird and Keith Rhodes of Catch offer simple holiday menu ideas for home cooks.
Most of us know the story – or at least the basics – of the only successful coup d'état in American history. The 1898 Wilmington, NC massacre perpetrated by white supremacists which killed citizens, forced elected officials from office, and drove successful Black professionals out of the city. But documentary filmmaker Christopher Everett, who produced Wilmington On Fire in 2015, is working on Wilmington On Fire Part II. He's telling a new story of Black power, prosperity, and self-reliance fueling a resurgence of a thriving African American population in the port city.
Sea levels are rising. Storms are intensifying. And the world’s sandy beaches and dunes are more important than ever for the protection of coastal environments. And yet sand mining is on the increase — much of it for beach nourishment. But is beach nourishment doing what we want it do? And is the public money used for beach protection actually preserving a public resource for the public good?
There's a food security plan in development through NC State's Cooperative Extension in New Hanover County. There's a grass-roots volunteer project that collects food from neighbors for monthly porch drops. Mike Claxton offers observations from one of the larger food pantries in Brunswick County. Cierra Washington of the Northside Food Cooperative talks about a deeper approach to feeding people. These efforts are all making a real difference in peoples' lives in the Cape Fear region. And, yes, hunger persists in one of the wealthiest parts of North Carolina.
Philip Gerard contended that the unhealed wounds and unresolved issues from the Civil War were a major driver of today’s Great American Divide. His next book idea, Toward a More Perfect Union: Why America Lost the Civil War and How to Win It Now, will remain unwritten. But he offers some of the ideas that would have gone into that book in other places. We take a closer look at his consistency and courage in this remembrance of a rich, well-lived, albeit abbreviated life.
After the NAACP filed at least two lawsuits over discriminatory practices, Ricky Kelly knew the story of Black Bike Week in Atlantic Beach, SC had to be told. But how do you make a documentary film when you've never made a film before and you don't even own a camera? Ricky bought a camera, and he and his wife, Cherie embarked upon what would become a new filmmaking career.
What The River Knows opens on Thalian Hall’s mainstage on November 10th, the 124th anniversary of the 1898 white supremacist massacre. Playwright Alicia Inshiradu has worked on what she calls a "passion project" for more than two decades.
As a 7-year-old, Alfred Schnog watched through hotel room curtains as the Nazis gleefully destroyed Jewish-owned businesses. His parents had encouraged their young boys to watch and told them to never forget what they were seeing. He never did forget. And he told us the story 2018. He passed away the very next year, in 2019, three days after the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht – that Night of Broken Glass.
When Mallory Cash started her professional life as a lawyer, she never imagined she'd let that career go in just a few short years. When she had her first child, she wanted to document how her daughter made her feel, and photographing the baby was the best way to do that. She also never dreamed her desire to chronicle her child's development would lead to an impressive and growing portfolio of southeastern luminaries — or a journalistic collaboration with Pulitzer Grantee Melba Newsome.
Despite the fact that school administrators across the U.S. say they won’t tolerate hazing, they’ve launched outreach efforts to educate students and parents, and they’ve suspended Greek organizations that violate school policy, the practice of hazing and the resulting long-term injuries and deaths continue.That’s the focus of award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt’s most recent documentary, called Hazing, and it’s what we explore on this episode of CoastLine.
Sure, you have a non-native invasive species, a beautiful plant, by the way, in a container on your back patio. There's no way it will wind up in a wild space, choking out native plants, depleting the local ecosystem, starving the pollinators. No way. Right? Wrong. Barbara J. Sullivan, who once was a traditional, English garden enthusiast, keeping things clipped, raked, and tucked, took her time accepting some of these ideas. She also implemented them in stages. As she explains, once you understand your private green space as part of an inseparable whole, you will never see it the same way again.
Research confirms that it’s not only trans kids, but also gender-expansive kids, at increased risk of suicidal behavior and other risk factors for suicide. So why has this part of the rainbow become an argument to either prove transgender doesn't exist or that gender-expansive must be trans? It's an closer look of the meaning of gender-expansive with UNCW Professor Julie-Ann Scott Pollock.
Imagine a space for artists in which the "white gaze" is not allowed. Professor John-Paul Zaccarini is creating FutureBlackSpace with just such protections. In this episode, we explore why. We also learn about intersectionality and what it means for him as a man who is reminded of his multiple marginalized identities each time he walks into white spaces.
Imagine a space for artists in which the "white gaze" is not allowed. Professor John-Paul Zaccarini is creating FutureBlackSpace with just such protections. In this episode, we explore why. We also learn about intersectionality and what it means for him as a man who is reminded of his multiple marginalized identities each time he walks into white spaces.
Imagine a space for artists in which the "white gaze" is not allowed. Professor John-Paul Zaccarini is creating FutureBlackSpace with just such protections. In this episode, we explore why. We also learn about intersectionality and what it means for him as a man who is reminded of his multiple marginalized identities each time he walks into white spaces.
The breakout moment for Damon Wayans came on the show, In Living Color, which ran for four years in the early 1990s. It was the first Black sketch comedy show on network television. And while he’d already enjoyed a season on Saturday Night Live, In Living Color gave him the chance to showcase not only his comedic performing chops – but also his ability to write sketches and create characters.
The breakout moment for Damon Wayans came on the show, In Living Color, which ran for four years in the early 1990s. It was the first Black sketch comedy show on network television. And while he’d already enjoyed a season on Saturday Night Live, In Living Color gave him the chance to showcase not only his comedic performing chops – but also his ability to write sketches and create characters.
The breakout moment for Damon Wayans came on the show, In Living Color, which ran for four years in the early 1990s. It was the first Black sketch comedy show on network television. And while he’d already enjoyed a season on Saturday Night Live, In Living Color gave him the chance to showcase not only his comedic performing chops – but also his ability to write sketches and create characters.
First Officer LeRoy Homer fought terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93 after they stormed the cockpit. While the hijackers intended to direct the plane towards Washington, D.C., they could not disable the autopilot function. So they sent the plane plunging into a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone on board. LeRoy Homer's widow, Melodie Homer, has allowed her grief to shape her life's work, which includes improving aviation safety and helping underrepresented young people fulfill their dreams of flying.
First Officer LeRoy Homer fought terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93 after they stormed the cockpit. While the hijackers intended to direct the plane towards Washington, D.C., they could not disable the autopilot function. So they sent the plane plunging into a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone on board. LeRoy Homer's widow, Melodie Homer, has allowed her grief to shape her life's work, which includes improving aviation safety and helping underrepresented young people fulfill their dreams of flying.
First Officer LeRoy Homer fought terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93 after they stormed the cockpit. While the hijackers intended to direct the plane towards Washington, D.C., they could not disable the autopilot function. So they sent the plane plunging into a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone on board. LeRoy Homer's widow, Melodie Homer, has allowed her grief to shape her life's work, which includes improving aviation safety and helping underrepresented young people fulfill their dreams of flying.
Joshua Halsey, Elaine’s great-great-grandfather, was shot 14 times and killed by white supremacists on November 10, 1898, leaving his wife, Sallie, a widow.Elaine Brown, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, along with her siblings, are putting together the fragmented stories of their family and learning about how the massacre shaped their lives. In her personal and artistic life, she tells her stories as Poet E Spoken.
The suburban monoculture dominated largely by traditional lawns could be accelerating climate change and species extinction. Supporting biodiversity by installing native trees, shrubs, and other plants means you are directly supporting the systems on which human life depends. Yes, human life.On this edition of CoastLine, we explore native plants – what they are in southeastern North Carolina, the impact they have on climate change and biodiversity, and how to put more of them in your environment.
Nina Repeta is forever recognizable as Bessie Potter, the older sister of Katie Holmes’ character on the iconic TV show, Dawson’s Creek, which continues to find new generations of fans. She's also appeared in several episodes of Matlock (and died several times), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (NOT Fried Green Tomatoes), and Radioland Murders.
Tony Rivenbark grew up in Duplin County and wanted to go to college at the smallest branch in the University of North Carolina system. So he came to Wilmington. He walked into Thalian Hall in 1966, which, as he says, for good or ill, set the course for the rest of his life. In this episode, we hear him talk about local history, Shakespeare, historic Thalian Hall, and the importance of story.
We meet a man who leads a local church and who volunteers on two foundations that support LGBTQ+ people and educational efforts. Rev. John McLaughlin talks about his work in the community, but he also shares his own story, which includes deep personal trauma. It’s that trauma that led him back to church and launched his search for a spiritual sanctuary where he could be gay and Christian.
Micky Dolenz, lead singer and drummer for The Monkees, agrees his most recognizable artistic achievement is his time on the TV show and with the band, but it hardly captures the breadth of his show-business career. Starting in the 1950s on the TV show Circus Boy, he played Corky, the waterboy for the elephants. He went on to perform in and direct musical theater in the West End, direct and produce TV shows for the BBC, and he continued touring as a musician. But his first loves remain architecture and science.
Micky Dolenz, lead singer and drummer for The Monkees, agrees his most recognizable artistic achievement is his time on the TV show and with the band, but it hardly captures the breadth of his show-business career. Starting in the 1950s on the TV show Circus Boy, he played Corky, the waterboy for the elephants. He went on to perform in and direct musical theater in the West End, direct and produce TV shows for the BBC, and he continued touring as a musician. But his first loves remain architecture and science.
Wiley Cash is working to demystify the creative process for himself and his online community. Creativity, he says, comes through engagement with the world — observing it, surrendering to it. It’s his fascination with his own creative process and pointing others in the direction of their own creative flow, whether writing or some other art form, that we explore on this edition of CoastLine.
Matt Sullivan's film production responsibilities have ranged from puppeteering baby bats to icing a female actor's nipples to brushing out the nap on carpet to hide tracks. While he's moved up through the ranks from a nonunion jack-of-all-trades employee to a union department head as Set Decorator, he still sees the precision, discipline, clarity, and intelligence of a Coen Brothers' film as the most rewarding of his career.
Author Philip Gerard contends the incorrect and incomplete narrative surrounding the Civil War perpetuates the great partisan divide. Once the gunfire ended and North Carolina rejoined the Union, questions about civil rights and race should have been settled. But they weren’t. The battle still rages. How to move towards a more perfect union? Education, he says, is key.
The women who join Alpha Kappa Alpha make a commitment to a lifetime of service. How that service is delivered and what the areas of focus are might differ from generation to generation and from city to city, but the end goal is the same: empowerment and expanded possibility for underserved people. Chrystal Fray and Jhaniqua Palmer are members of AKA's Wilmington chapter.
Scott Davis started his professional film career as a set painter on Firestarter in the early 1980s. He also landed a small part in that project, and for almost four more decades, he continued what he calls his gypsy life as professional film crew member. He picked up a StarNews lifetime achievement award in 2019 for enduring contribution to Wilmington theater, which he shares with his brother-from-another-mother, Jeff Loy.
The Honey Head filmmakers describe what they do as putting a narrative spin on the creative world. The company is run and staffed by women. They say they’re breaking down barriers not only as female filmmakers — but as full-time working artists in Wilmington, North Carolina.
After working on the movie, Firestarter, in Wilmington in the early 1980s, Bobby Huber rose through the ranks, his circus rigging experience preparing him well for the job of key grip. His work helped earn Oscars in cinematography for two films: Braveheart and Legends of the Fall.
After working on the movie, Firestarter, in Wilmington in the early 1980s, Bobby Huber rose through the ranks, his circus rigging experience preparing him well for the job of key grip. His work helped earn Oscars in cinematography for two films: Braveheart and Legends of the Fall.
Researchers were shocked to find that the eyeballs of shrimp develop, not based on how deep they live in the ocean, but by the animal's ability to emit light through bioluminescence and the need they have to see the signals from other deep sea animals. In other words, the need to communicate could be a key factor. Dr. Lorian Schweikert also details how their underwater camera captured the first video ever of a giant squid in the Gulf of Mexico.
The film Words on Bathroom Walls is hailed by some critics as a worthy step away from the stigma surrounding mental illness. Adapted from the Julia Walton novel, the film tells the story of Adam, who suffers from schizophrenia. He sees people who aren’t there, he hears voices, he witnesses phenomena not actually happening, and he feels the social isolation deeply. Hallucinations can be dramatic, when people or rooms suddenly go up in flames, physical fights break out, inky black swirls form. And for a film these effects require, yes, special effects, but also stunt performers. And that's where Peter King comes in.
Kieran Haile is the great-great-grandson of Alexander Manly, owner and publisher of The Daily Record, which was burned down in Wilmington, North Carolina by a white supremacist mob in 1898. Kieran and his wife, Priscilla, are uncovering their family’s past: both the triumphs and the pain, the wrongs done to them and the gifts the Manly line has given to the world. And in the process they are learning about themselves, introducing us to another great-great-grandchild of Alex Manly, Leila Haile, and insisting white people start doing their own work towards racial reconciliation.
It wasn’t until Kieran Haile broke his hip at age 29 that he began to learn about how traumas from America’s early years are more than a dissociated story from the past. His brittle bone disease, he learned, is a consequence of slavery in the American south, when white slaveowners would rape Black women – eventually, perhaps, raping their own daughters. Kieran Haile, the great-great-grandson of Alexander Manly, and his wife, Priscilla Haile, visited Wilmington for the first time in September of 2021.
The story begins when officers from a neighboring ship climb aboard to investigate a cargo ship’s distress signal. They find bloodied decks, one crew member tied up, one crew member dead, and reports that all four of the ship’s officers had been murdered and tossed overboard.The three men still alive were Black. The four dead officers were white.Would it be possible for the accused to get a fair trial in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1905?
ICYMI: Scientists out of Duke University say fish in the Lower Cape Fear River are more contaminated than previously thought, and fish consumption advisories have been dangerously outdated. They've also learned that the people who fish from the river are not necessarily doing it for sport. People are eating the fish and sharing it with others, and in this episode of CoastLine, we'll learn which fish are safer and how to cook them to minimize contaminants
On this episode of CoastLine, as part of the North Carolina Filmmakers Series, we meet two people who make their living in front of the camera. Allie McCulloch and Nick Basta are professional actors based in Wilmington, are both raising children in the Cape Fear region, and they both landed roles in the 2020 film, The Glorias, starring Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander. (They also happen to be friends.)
Research confirms that it’s not only trans kids, but also gender-expansive kids, at increased risk of suicidal behavior and other risk factors for suicide. So why has this part of the rainbow become an argument to either prove transgender doesn't exist or that gender-expansive must be trans? It's an closer look of the meaning of gender-expansive with UNCW Professor Julie-Ann Scott Pollock.
Operatic bass Paul Plishka debuted with the Met in 1967 as the Monk in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Fifty seasons later, Plishka had appeared in 1,672 performances of 88 roles, including as Philip (II) in Don Carlo, King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, and as the title characters of Boris Godunov and Falstaff. In fact, according to The Met, only eight other people have sung more with the company. And this was a guy who used to think opera singers sounded like screeching chickens.
After four days of clashes in the Port City, two people were dead, six were injured, and more than half-a-million dollars in damage was done. Mike’s Grocery, a white-owned store in a Black neighborhood, had been fire-bombed. It took the National Guard to put an end to the conflict. It's the story of The Wilmington Ten, begun 51 years ago, and still reverberating in Wilmington, NC.
Even though she was born and raised in the Brooklyn section of Wilmington, it took years before Cynthia Brown learned details of the massacre that shattered families, gutted a thriving Black professional class, and caused her great-grandmother, from her deathbed, to grab Cynthia’s wrist and urge her to “run” if it ever happens again.
Francine DeCoursey grew up in Charleston, South Carolina during the era of legal racial segregation. A young white girl living near a largely Black community in the segregated American South, she grew to know and love Gullah Geechee culture. And she met Dixie Lee, her childhood best friend. It was here that she also received an early and direct education about the cruelty and harm of racism.
Lucy McCauley was well into adulthood — married and raising her daughter — when she discovered her white ancestors had enslaved people. A few years later, she learned her great-grandfather, William Berry McKoy, was a key figure in facilitating the violence that led to a coup d'état in Wilmington, North Carolina in November 1898. What's she doing with that knowledge? How do the actions of her forebears inform her own identity?
One of the most remote places on earth, Palmyra Atoll is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's an outpost for conservation scientists to conduct research. On this episode, we find out what they're learning about how coral reefs thrive — and why that's important for a healthy ecosystem in water and on land.
On this edition of CoastLine, we explore some of the common challenges – and admittedly some very strange ones – so that the human end of the leash sets up the dog end of the leash for success. Our expert is Lynne Swanson, retired DVM, and author of Smile! and other practical life lessons your dogs can teach you.
Blue Velvet stars Isabella Rossellini, Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, and Dennis Hopper. Written and produced by David Lynch, The New York Times notes the film has been called both ''the sickest movie ever made'' and ''the work of a genius naif.'' Makeup Effects Artist Jeff Goodwin created the horrifying and iconic severed human ear in the film, in addition to cuts, abrasions, a brain protruding from a live human skull, and other gore. The ear, however, developed into its own character on set and became known as "Mr. Ear."
It was January of 2019 that WHQR brought together about dozen people to launch a yearlong experiment in civil discourse. The series, Beneath The Surface, had some deeply moving and surprising moments, and it had some spectacular failures. One colleague at the station likens the series to the early garage band tapes of civil discourse. Another colleague calls it the series that broke me. Arthur Brooks wrote the book I relied on heavily during that process.
Kieran Haile is the great-great-grandson of Alexander Manly, owner and publisher of The Daily Record, which was burned down in Wilmington, North Carolina by a white supremacist mob in 1898. Kieran and his wife, Priscilla, are uncovering their family’s past: both the triumphs and the pain, the wrongs done to them and the gifts the Manly line has given to the world. And in the process they are learning about themselves, introducing us to another great-great-grandchild of Alex Manly, Leila Haile, and insisting white people start doing their own work towards racial reconciliation.
Dina Greenberg collects the stories of trauma survivors — particularly those of Holocaust victims and their descendants and Bosnian War survivors. She studies intergenerational trauma and the healing power of storytelling, and out of that work has come her first novel, Nermina's Chance.
After watching his dad work in special effects for years, Will Purcell started his career on a Chuck Norris film in 1984: Invasion USA. He went on to work on dozens of productions, including The Crow, Scream 5, Gerald’s Game, The Strangers, Cabin Fever 2, Under the Dome, Young Guns, and Max Steel. He counts himself lucky, he says, because he plays for work. It’s never the same old grind at the office, and he often makes it up as he goes along.
The United States Constitution set up a system that relied on self-government through democratic elections – theoretically, anyway, rendering violence unnecessary. But getting there included repeated violence, even terrorism, and that ideal has not held up. UNCW Professor David Houpt is with us to explore the role of violence in democracy and whether it's successful.
Marthe Pineau has helped to create the look and feel of Idlewild, The Crow, Bolden, the TV series Matlock, the pilot for Dexter — among many other film and TV productions. Being a set decorator, she says, taps her working knowledge of history, literature, fine art — and her love of learning. As an officer of IATSE Local 491, she also explores the latest film set tragedy on Rust and what that could mean for a contract agreement.
It wasn’t until Kieran Haile broke his hip at age 29 that he began to learn about how traumas from America’s early years are more than a dissociated story from the past. His brittle bone disease, he learned, is a consequence of slavery in the American south, when white slaveowners would rape Black women – eventually, perhaps, raping their own daughters. Kieran Haile, the great-great-grandson of Alexander Manly, and his wife, Priscilla Haile, visited Wilmington for the first time in September of 2021.
WHQR News Director Ben Schachtman is with us to offer something of a primer on the municipal races on the ballot this fall. You'll come away with a better idea of who’s on the ballot and why, what the pressing local issues are this year, and you don’t even have to listen directly to politicians.
Sydney Penny is on the verge of launching her own film production company. Dubbed Cucklebur and Company, the enterprise is dedicated to telling as-yet untold stories originating from the American South.She’s claimed responsibility for her own destiny pretty much from the time she launched her career in entertainment: striding onto a stage while the performers were taking a break, grabbing the microphone, and singing a song. She was 3 ½ years old. The actual musical entertainers that night were her parents, who decided to go with it. And an actor was born.
The farther down the road of disease a patient goes before diagnosis, the more challenging – and unlikely – that doctors can bring them back to health. The pandemic has exacerbated this trend: women are showing up in the doctor’s office with later stages of cancer.
When Ghosts Come Home is the first murder mystery that Wiley Cash has tackled, and on this edition of CoastLine, we find out why writing a mystery is a different kind of challenge. We also explore some of the themes around which the story turns: racial tension and white supremacy in the Cape Fear region.
On this episode of CoastLine we talk with Sculptor Stephen Hayes about his mission: to make Black bodies more human in the eyes of the world. The Cameron Art Museum commissioned a work from Hayes to commemorate a group of unsung African-American heroes: the United States Colored Troops who fought the Battle of Forks Road on the current site of the CAM. It's a skirmish that led to the fall of Wilmington and ultimately, the end of the Civil War. Our conversation with Hayes can be hard to hear sometimes due to our remote Zoom recording, but it's worth fighting through.
As we head into the fall and winter with a pandemic still raging, local arts leaders are planning plenty of in-person entertainment and putting safety protocols in place. But some touring artists are demanding even stricter rules compared to the venues — requiring proof of vaccination only or shorter windows for negative Covid test results.
You might recognize the name Randy Sturgill from local news stories about offshore drilling and seismic testing. He is often credited with mobilizing the grassroots movement against such activities – causing hundreds of municipalities along the Eastern seaboard to sign resolutions opposing oil and gas exploration offshore. But Randy Sturgill didn't come from a family that engaged in environmental advocacy. Rather, he grew up in the living quarters of the Harnett County jail, and not because he broke any laws. His father was the Chief Deputy Sheriff and the Sturgill family lived on the grounds of the jailhouse. It was the prisoners that taught Randy how to play cards and lectured him about the importance of living a better life than the ones they had chosen.
Alonzo Bodden is known and loved by NPR listeners around the globe as a frequent panelist on the comedy news quiz show, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! But his own standup comedy lives in the tension between light jokes and the heavier, more depressing news of the day. He's a self-described news junkie who might be losing his tolerance for the same old storyline. And his jokes on letting the younger generation take over, well, that's where it goes dark... Listen to this episode for context.
In what the Southern Environmental Law Center calls “an abrupt reversal in decades of policy and practice,” the Corps now plans to allow hopper dredging year-round at Wilmington and Morehead City Harbors. That includes, according to the SELC, the height of turtle nesting season and times of year when many fish are in young sensitive life stages. So far, the decision has led to at least four sea turtle deaths in North Carolina. But the Corps argues year-round flexibility will offer efficiency, taxpayer cost-savings, and a more navigable channel.
More than 120 years after Wilmington's coup d'état targeting Black elected officials and citizens, historians, researchers, and genealogists are still piecing together what the 19th century port city was like, who the victims of 1898 were, and where their surviving family members migrated to rebuild their lives.
Live comedy is about to emerge from its period of brumation. The expanded Dead Crow Comedy Showroom is now part of Lush, a 7-day-a-week bar and beer garden, with a separate Comedy Showroom. Comedians are returning to the Wilmington area. Local comedians are stepping back on the stage. But how different will comedy be during what is still a worldwide pandemic? And how rusty are comedians?
When you hear a person speak, you make instant judgments about them — including whether they're credible, annoying, smart, or flighty. But do you understand the basis of those instant judgments? And it is worth questioning them? We explore the intersection of power, language, and gender dynamics on this edition of CoastLine - originally broadcast in 2016.
Black bears, feral swine, alligators, and snakes — venomous and nonvenomous — are living in the Cape Fear region. There's nothing to fear from the local wildlife, say state biologists, but there's a lot to learn.
John Bare's wife, Betsy, was one of more than six-hundred-thousand Americans who lost their life to Covid-19. After her death in 2020, Bare finished his first novel, began making ceramic pieces of pie in honor of her, and decided to share his grief through art — and an exploration of vulnerability.
When we talk about LGBTQ issues, it’s the T that we often leave out of the discussion. That’s at least in part because the Ts are a minority even inside the community. But are they small in number because they’re small in number – or because it’s a much harder road to take? On this third edition of Queer in the Cape Fear, we’re seeking to do a better job of understanding the T.
If you’re a long-time All Things Considered listener, you will remember Melissa Block as the anchor paired with Robert Siegel for more than a decade -- from 2003 to 2015. Then, Melissa Block stepped away from the anchor desk to immerse herself in feature reporting. Over the course of her 32-year career at NPR, she has covered domestic and international news – including the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and the massive 2008 earthquake in China. In this conversation recorded in 2017, we hear about what it's like to cover tragic events and why she never imagined a career like this.
Hari Kondabolu does make people laugh. But he also makes people think. He’s caught the attention of NPR and done interviews on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He’s a panelist on Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!, and in 2014, The New York Times described him as “one of the most exciting political comics in stand-up today.”
Employers are having such a hard time finding warm bodies to show up for work they’re more eager than ever to make jobs appealing and train workers for positions they might not have previously even considered them for.
It's 1934, the middle of the Great Depression in America. The federal government sends hundreds of jobless World War I veterans to the Florida Keys for a work program. On its face, it's a great idea – pay these men to build a highway between Miami and Key West as part of a New Deal construction project. The men have jobs live in a mild climate and are out of public view, but the plan doesn't take into account a major hurricane.
A bill moving through the North Carolina state legislature doesn’t name “Critical Race Theory”, but House Bill 324 states, in part, that public schools shall not promote the concept that an individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously or that a person bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.
It’s hard enough to keep a small family farm going. But add to that the challenges of systemic and environmental racism -- and the Keatons’ accomplishment becomes even less likely. But it’s their commitment to keeping their land, farming it, and teaching the next generation that has protected their family legacy.
Duke University Professor Thomas DeFrantz asserts that our lives are about shifting direction, pivoting, or being stopped. And creativity, he says, lives in finding the way to keep going, keep moving. The electromagnetic pulse of the body is the goingness.
We meet a man who leads a local church and who volunteers on two foundations that support LGBTQ+ people and educational efforts. Rev. John McLaughlin talks about his work in the community, but he also shares his own story, which includes deep personal trauma. It’s that trauma that led him back to church and launched his search for a spiritual sanctuary where he could be gay and Christian.
Election fraud allegations arise with varying degrees of credibility each election season. A five-part series called, “The Improvement Association, a true story of election fraud”, looks at accusations of illegal interference in Bladen County’s elections and the power of rumors – whether those rumors can be substantiated or not.
On this edition of Coastline, we meet two people from this community. One woman, one man. One in mid-life. One a young adult. They both live in the Cape Fear region. And while neither of them would say they feel despised or hunted or under attack here, they still must think about how mainstream local residents might respond to them. And this – the constant, necessary vigilance is the part that should not have been – but was news to this journalist.
The exuberance of spring is axiomatic, but as every spring has its own theme, so does the spring of 2021. New life and longer days and warmer air and the riotous generosity of nature explode in stark contrast to the rigid stricture of six feet apart, masks, disinfectant, solitude. We are in a not-quite-post-pandemic planting season.
Deborah Dicks Maxwell was born in Wilmington, North Carolina and calls it home, but she’s lived and traveled around the world. Despite her boarding school days in South Carolina, college in Pittsburgh at LaRoche University, graduate schooling at East Carolina University, military tours of duty which include Korea and Operation Desert Storm, Deborah Dicks Maxwell is familiar to many local residents from her advocacy work.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama. Comedian Chris Rock. Basketball superstar Michael Jordan. The Godfather of Soul James Brown. These are just a few of the well-known Americans who are descendants of the Gullah Geechee people.
The Creekwood community in Wilmington, a housing project often referred to as part of the inner city, is still somewhat isolated. It's a place where it’s hard to get a pizza or much else delivered because drivers fear the neighborhood violence. But it was here that a little boy lived with his mother and four siblings in the 1970s and 80s. There were extended family members, aunts and uncles, but his single mother raised her five children on her own.
Imagine having a brother who is addicted heroin. He keeps winding up in prison. You're younger, but you know better. And so you build your life without him. You grow up and one day you notice that an entire sector of the population is suffering for the same reasons your brother suffers and are caught in the same revolving door of addiction and prison. Many of these people are returning from Vietnam – where they were sent when they weren’t even fully developed adults.