Virginia is so steeped in history that people keep finding more of it.
Or at least that’s what it seems like when you listen to a podcast like the exceptional “Revolution Revisited” series from the Virginia Museum of History and Culture (VMHC). At the beginning of this year, the museum started rolling out weekly episodes that chart the events leading up to the American revolution.
While there are enough dates specified for hardcore history nerds, the focus of the pod is on detailing the lesser known incidents and introducing the key players that built the momentum pushing colonists to fight for their independence. VMHC’s director of history education and the program’s host, Maggie Creech, keeps Virginia and its key role in the developing story front and center.
From the first episode, it’s clear that the podcast isn’t a historical hagiography, as a young George Washington is depicted as being brash and maybe downright bumbling in his first attempts to make a name for himself.
Later in the series, Creech and her guests drop crazy contextual eye-openers like the fact that more members of the First Continental Congress had been to London than to Philadelphia. And we meet groundbreaking characters like Clementina Rind, a Virginia printer who played a key role in spreading early revolutionary ideas.
The first of four planned seasons wrapped in March but “bonus” content will be dropping through the summer. And, as the May episode on Patrick Henry’s letter opener demonstrates, you can actually see the artifacts talked about by visiting the museum. As Hailey Fenner, VMHC’s manager of multimedia production, puts it, “There are history podcasts left and right, but we’ve actually got the stuff.”
You’ll hear more recent history referred to in the “Mighty Pen Podcast,” an extension of the Mighty Pen Project created by local author David L. Robbins. Over the 10 years of its existence, the Project has provided a no-cost creative outlet for veterans, allowing them to process or simply share their experiences in military service, mostly through writing their personal stories.
Produced by the Virginia War Memorial (VWM), each episode features the reading of one or two stories penned by project participants and then follow-up interviews conducted by Robbins. The oldest stories reach back to the Vietnam War; the newest capture scenes of service during deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq and the South China Sea.
Robbins and the VWM team do a great job of capturing the breadth of circumstances a veteran might have faced. Stories involving active combat are balanced against those featuring bracing auxiliary responsibilities. An administrative functionary traveling with the bodies of fallen soldiers has to face grieving families or a young serviceman on duty in a nuclear weapons silo grapples with potentially civilization-ending orders.
Some stories translate better to audio than others and Robbins’ is often breathlessly laudatory in his interviews, calling each participant a “warrior” regardless of the particulars of their service.
As an expression of support for individuals facing unimaginable challenges, the podcast builds on a remarkable ongoing effort. But those looking for conversations about the thornier historical implications of the stories told will need to look elsewhere.
Previous “Active Listening” columns have discussed shows like “RVA’s Got Issues” and “Untold” that are chronicling local political history as it is unfolding. Predating both of them is “The Randy Wilson Podcast.”
Since debuting early in 2019, Wilson, a behavioral health professional, has built a solid audience of regular listeners, bringing a relaxed but pointed interviewing style to his conversations with a broad array of cultural and political leaders in Richmond.
Those listeners and their emotionally charged comments recently led to a tense podcast faceoff between candidates for Richmond sheriff, Antoinette Irving and William Burnett. While not a true debate as the candidates were interviewed separately, Wilson effectively channeled his listeners’ concerns evoking some clarifying responses.
The podcast may oversell itself at times: an episode titled “The Truth About Richmond’s Water Crisis” featuring Mayor Danny Avula doesn’t reveal anything not found in the mainstream press, for instance.
But Wilson’s proximity to the people, together with access to local movers and shakers, puts his podcast in prime position to report on street-level reality as new history gets made in the months ahead.
