St. Louis on the Air

The four Democratic candidates running for St. Louis County Executive face off in an hour-long debate. Nine Network, 5 On Your Side and St. Louis Public Radio partnered to host the hour-long St. Louis County Executive Democratic Primary Debate between incumbent Sam Page and his challengers: Jake Zimmerman, Mark Mantovani and Jamie Tolliver. The candidates took questions from Casey Nolen, Jason Rosenbaum and Ruth Ezell. Topics included challenges presented by the coronavirus, gun violence, mass transit and economic development. Republican candidates Paul Berry III and Ed Golterman are vying for their party’s nomination.

Author A.J. Baime joins host Sarah Fenske to discuss his new book, "Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America’s Soul." The book explores how Truman shocked the media, the political polling experts and his opponents by winning election to the seat he'd inherited three years before with the death of Franklin Roosevelt.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis has added a new component to its exhibition of the work of Derek Fordjour: a "microprogram" called After Shelter. The museum is asking patrons to share their oral reflections on Fordjour's art and the pandemic, with the audio to be archived with the national nonprofit StoryCorps. Chief Curator Wassan Al-Khudhairi joined host Sarah Fenske to explain the idea behind the audio project and how it fits with the themes in Fordjour's work. We also played some of the museum patrons' reflections.

Aloni Benson found himself on the frontlines in Ferguson in 2014, calling for change after a police officer killed Michael Brown Jr. But protesting wasn't enough. Two years later, Benson became an officer with the St. Louis County Police Department. St. Louis Public Radio’s Marissanne Lewis-Thompson talks with him and his wife Khalia about his decision to become a cop, raising a black son, and what it’s like being a police officer assigned to protests.

Vernon Mitchell Jr. was an undergrad at the University of Missouri-Columbia, intent on heading next to medical school, when he enrolled in a course on the Black freedom movement — and soon decided to become a historian instead. “It changed everything for me,” Mitchell recalls about the class, taught by Mizzou’s Carol Anderson. And one moment, and person, stood out to Mitchell as his professor introduced her students to key figures and events within the civil rights movement: the Reverend C.T. Vivian, a Missouri native described by the New York Times as a “field general” for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The footage of Vivian confronting law enforcement in 1965 on the steps of a Selma courthouse has remained seared in Mitchell’s consciousness ever since. Mitchell, who is now a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis, joins host Sarah Fenske to remember the life and legacy of Vivian. He passed away Friday at the age of 95 — mere hours before a fellow civil rights legend, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, 80, also died.

As the St. Louis Cardinals start their 2020 season with a home opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates this Friday, a burst of brightly colored familiarity will return to downtown. But not the tens of thousands of fans that typically fill Busch Stadium. As the Redbirds’ devoted fans gather instead (and hopefully in socially distant ways) around TVs and other devices to take in the abbreviated, 60-game season, conditions inside the stadium will be a whole new ballgame. In this conversation, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold joins host Sarah Fenske to talk about the upcoming season. They discuss some of the biggest changes — and the big remaining questions — associated with this year’s play, as well as the strength of the year’s roster.

When one thinks of “the island life,” sentiments of a tropical ocean breeze, easygoing lifestyle and good food likely come to mind. And that is very much part of the experience. But with the good, comes the bad — and Zahra Spencer and Telie Woods saw the worst of it. They are the owners of Jerk Soul, a Caribbean carryout restaurant on Cherokee Street. Sauce Magazine detailed Spencer’s and Woods’ harrowing story of opening their first restaurant — despite hurricanes, transatlantic moves and barely knowing one another in its July issue. Guest host Jeremy D. Goodwin talks with with Spencer and Woods for our monthly Sound Bites segment alongside Sauce Magazine managing editor Heather Hughes Huff.

Guest host Jeremy D. Goodwin talks with singer-songwriter-actor Tre G about navigating “the new normal” as a performer and finding his place in an ongoing movement towards racial equity. Recently, he organized WerQfest to do just that. The digital festival was geared toward celebrating Black queer art and community.

Hospitals in St. Louis are seeing more children and teens showing up for self-harm during the pandemic, according to emergency medicine pediatrician Dr. Rachel Charney of SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. In this interview, she talks about what is leading to the increase in these cases, as well as potential warning signs that parents and caregivers can look for.

The St. Louis Art Museum has extended because of the pandemic the stay of “Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalí” through September. The curators say the exhibition acknowledges the contributions of a largely forgotten artist who was instrumental in the birth of modern art: 19th-century French painter Jean-François Millet. Millet’s work features landscapes, nudes and other work that inspired other artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet. In an encore of this conversation aired February 20, 2020, host Sarah Fenske talks with Simon Kelly, curator of modern and contemporary art at the St. Louis Art Museum.