First hour: Reconnecting imprisoned parents with their children through literacy
Second hour: Journalist Pamela Newkirk and her book, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga
In the United States, more than two million Americans are in prison, and 50 percent of those inmates have children under the age of 18. That means more than 1 in 28 children have a parent in prison, up from 1 in 125 children 25 years ago. In Ontario County, volunteers have teamed up to help re-connect families through literacy: the Storybook Program offers imprisoned parents the opportunity to record audiocassettes or CDs of themselves reading to their children. The program is the subject of a new documentary called Turn the Page, which has been submitted for the Unite Rochester Challenge. Our guests:
- Linda Moroney, filmmaker and director of Turn the Page
- Claire Kremer, founder, Storybook Project
In our second hour: In 1906, the Bronx Zoo opened a new exhibition in its Monkey House. Thousands of visitors flocked to see the highly controversial “attraction” – a 103-pound, four-foot, eleven-inch Congolese man named Ota Benga, who was caged with an orangutan. His story, and society’s response, is told in a new book, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga, by journalist Pamela Newkirk. She is in Rochester this week to talk about the book and the media’s coverage of the Black Lives Matter Movement. She joins us in studio for the hour.
