This Thanksgiving, Blue Ridge Public Radio will bring listeners some classic holiday programming as well as some insightful documentaries from American Public Media and NPR. (All programs are one hour long unless otherwise noted) To get a listing of frequencies for BPR Classic and BPR News, click here.
Thurs Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving)
Noon (simulcast) - Giving Thanks - Giving Thanks offers a contemporary celebration of gratitude, with classical music and stories of Thanksgiving. Great American writers will grace us this Thanksgiving, 2019. Giving Thanks remembers poet Mary Oliver as she reads poems of gratitude and nature. Walt Whitman stops by to celebrate Thanksgiving and his 200th birthday, and we'll set a place at the table for New Yorker writer, best-selling author, humorist, and turkey aficionado Adam Gopnik.
7 pm (BPR Classic) – Every Good Thing - This Thanksgiving, host Andrea Blain and classical music fans from around the country take time to give thanks and celebrate one of life's most meaningful gifts: music. Audiences will hear listeners from across the U.S. share stories about their favorite classical music pieces.
8 – 10 pm (BPR Classic) – Giving Thanks (extended version) - Giving Thanks offers a contemporary celebration of gratitude, with classical music and stories of Thanksgiving. Great American writers will grace us this Thanksgiving, 2019. Giving Thanks remembers poet Mary Oliver as she reads poems of gratitude and nature. Walt Whitman stops by to celebrate Thanksgiving and his 200th birthday, and we'll set a place at the table for New Yorker writer, best-selling author, humorist, and turkey aficionado Adam Gopnik.
8 pm (BPR News) – The Great Listen From StoryCorps - Imagine what we'd find out if we'd just ask? Join host Audie Cornish for an hour of storytelling -- and surprises -- as we share the best stories gathered from the Storycorps app. Audie talks to Storycorps founder Dave Isay about how he started Storycorps, and we hear some great stories from users who have discovered the Storycorps app for the first time. Audie also talks to Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress about her work with Storycorps in Baltimore collecting stories following the riots after the death of Freddie Gray. And Audie's nephew Julian Tarpey unseats Audie from the host chair to interview her about her life.
Fri Nov. 29
Noon (simulcast) – Spotlight On Indigenous Relocation - An honest, insightful discussion of the ongoing trauma and mental health impacts from the U.S. government's American Indian Relocation Program - designed in the 1950s to assimilate Indigenous people into white-centric society and eliminate tribal governments and culture. Indigenous experts delve into the impacts of historical trauma in their community and the resiliency factors that empower so many to overcome persistent systems of discrimination.
Hosted by Anton Treuer, Ph.D. (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University. Panelists include:
- Delores Subia BigFoot, Ph.D. (Caddo of Oklahoma, affiliated with Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana), Director of Indian Country Child Trauma Center and Native American Programs at University of Oklahoma College of Medicine
- Ann Bullock, MD (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), Chief Clinical Consultant of Family Medicine and Director of the Division of Diabetes Treatment and Prevention at Indian Health Service
- Dorene Day (Nett Lake, Bois Forte Band of Chippewa), Midewiwin kwe, Anishinaabe midwife, traditional practitioner, educator, trainer
Sat Nov. 30
3 pm (BPR Classic) – Fading Minds: Why There’s Still No Cure For Alzheimer’s - In the late 1970s, the newly formed National Institute on Aging redefined senility as a disease – specifically, Alzheimer's disease. They said that with enough support they could find a cure, but after 40 years and billions of dollars, there is still no treatment. In this hour, we hear from people who shaped early Alzheimer's research, we explore promising dementia treatments that have received short shrift because it's hard to make money on them, and we look at racial disparities in dementia and what they can tell us about why people develop cognitive problems as they age.