When celebrated American novelist and short story writer Flannery O’Connor died at the age of 39 in 1964, she left behind an unfinished third novel titled Why Do the Heathen Rage? Scholarly experts uncovered and studied the material, deeming it unpublishable. It stayed that way for 40 years. Until now.
Join Peter and Orlando as they explore, along with author Jessica Hooten Wilson, the lessons and the what-might-have-beens of Why Do the Heathen Rage?
It’s the summer of 1964 and three innocent men are brutally murdered for trying to help Black Mississippians secure the right to vote. Against this backdrop, twenty-one-year-old Violet Richards finds herself in more trouble than she’s ever been. Peter and Orlando dive into Anywhere You Run in this episode and talk with Atlanta-based author Wanda Morris.
Before dawn Oct. 26, 1960, police dogs roused a then-31-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. awake in a DeKalb County Jail cell. Sherriff’s deputies yelled for him to get up, handcuffed and manacled him by flashlight, and shoved him into the back of a police car. They ignored his pleas for an explanation.
It was 4 a.m. when they drove into the night on a desolate country road. He had no idea if he would live to see the sun rise.