As StoryCorps celebrates 20 years, we’re looking back at where we came from, while also looking forward to what the following decades have in store.
On this special series from the StoryCorps podcast, we’re bringing you eight brand new episodes… celebrating our history up until the present. We’ll take you back to the birth of StoryCorps… and explore how it has grown and matured over the years. From the first recording booth in Grand Central Station, to a mobile tour that travels the country recording people from all walks of life… we’ll share some of our favorite stories from people who’ve inspired us with their wisdom of how best to live. This season is a tribute to everyone who has recorded with us these past two decades, and all the people who have made the work possible.
Some extra episodes to celebrate the 20th Anniversary
Extra: The Kids from North Baghdad
Commemorating StoryCorps’ 20th anniversary, we’ll journey through the past and present. Listen to an early Military Voices Initiative conversation with Specialist Justin Cliburn who formed an unlikely friendship with two Iraqi boys who lived nearby.
Extra: Why I’m on this Earth
In celebration of our 20th Anniversary, we revisit some of our most memorable conversations. In our most recent Weekend Edition, Sergeant Ocean Subiono tells his father about what happened when he tried to enlist in the army.
StoryCorps Is Born
In this episode, we go back to the origins of StoryCorps — the challenges of building a recording booth in Grand Central Terminal — and we catch up with the participants from the first ever radio story we broadcast on NPR.
Love Letters
In this episode, we bring you two of our favorite stories that came to define StoryCorps’ early years, and we share updates from the participants over the last two decades.
On the Road
In the third episode of our special series celebrating two decades of StoryCorps, we’re bringing you inside the Mobile Booth — the recording studio we built in a trailer to circle the country, capturing voices that would otherwise never be recorded. Hear some of our favorite stories from the road, and from the people who haul the trailer on a never-ending road trip.
Beyond the Booth
For most of StoryCorps’ existence, we’ve recorded people in person at our storybooths. But on this episode of our special series celebrating 20 years of StoryCorps, we’re looking back to times we stepped outside the recording booth to capture stories we’d never hear otherwise. Sometimes because we wanted to hear new voices… and sometimes because we had to.
The Griot of Knoxville
As we celebrate StoryCorps’ 20th anniversary, we bring you the story of a man who integrated his high school as a teenager in Knoxville, Tennessee, and how a StoryCorps listener comment helped him reckon with his past five decades later.
Family Pride
StoryCorps’ initiatives have long helped us gather voices that are usually omitted from the historical record, like our LGBTQ+ Outloud initiative. In our continuing celebration of twenty years of StoryCorps, we’re sharing some of our favorite recordings from that collection and how a story close to our founder Dave Isay’s heart helped lead to its creation.
Mother Mary
Mary Johnson-Roy first came to StoryCorps in 2011 to speak with Oshea Israel, the man who murdered her son. In the latest episode from our special series celebrating StoryCorps’ 20th anniversary, we’ll share updates on a conversation none of us imagined would happen back when StoryCorps started.
Listen More, Shout Less
As we close out our special series celebrating 20 years of StoryCorps, hear how our One Small Step initiative is helping to facilitate our national conversation by bringing people together from across the political spectrum.