[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We are so thrilled to celebrate the 20th anniversary today of the Public Radio series StoryCorps, which records people in real conversations in their real lives and has moved people so much when they air. Back when it started, the founder, Dave Isay, said he wanted to make us a nation of oral historians. He once said on this show that he wanted to make us a nation that doesn't scream at each other so much but actually talks and listens to each other.

Okay, that's a work in progress. We share the goal, and Dave has actually created an across-the-aisle political conversation track of StoryCorps, so that's one of the things we'll celebrate and sample from now. Almost every Public Radio listener has probably heard StoryCorps conversations of one kind or another by now and remembers one or another that touched them. We will tell you how to make your own as well.

On the occasion of this 20th anniversary, Dave Isay is back with us with a couple of clips that are among the most memorable for him to share one more time and for some more conversation. Dave, always good to talk. Welcome back to the show, and OMG, congratulations on 20 years.

Dave Isay: Thank you, Brian. I was sitting here in this studio 20 years ago today celebrating with you. This is where the radio part of StoryCorps was born-

Brian Lehrer: That's right.

Dave Isay: -so I'm incredibly grateful to you and to the show.

Brian Lehrer: Present at the creation. One of the questions you suggest people ask in StoryCorps interviews is what's your earliest memory? Let me start with you this way. You were already a Public Radio journalist. What's your earliest memory of wanting to create something like StoryCorps?

Dave Isay: No one has ever asked me that question before. I've been asked every question on the [unintelligible 00:01:56].

Brian Lehrer: We got it from your list.

Dave Isay: It was probably about a year before we launched in Grand Central Terminal 20 years ago today. What I remember is I wrote an email to the team. I was making radio documentaries then and had this idea, and over three days, it kind of formed over a series of emails, which were not met with open arms by my team, if I remember correctly. Everybody thought it was kind of a crazy idea, but they came along, and here we are 20 years later. It's been a really wonderful, beautiful journey.

Brian Lehrer: You describe what you've built as the largest collection of human voices ever archived. How do you measure that?

Dave Isay: Well, as far as we know, we've had about 700,000 people participate.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Dave Isay: As far as we know, it's the largest single collection by far of human voices of interviews. We've been saying that for a long time. I don't remember what the next biggest was, but we surpassed that maybe 15, 16, 17, 18 years ago, something like that.

Brian Lehrer: All right. You brought one of your all-time favorite interviews. We asked you to pick one and you did. We're going to give it its full two and a half minutes here out of respect for how powerful and unusual it is. Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel in conversation in 2011. You want to set this up for us?

Dave Isay: Sure. When Oshea Israel was 16 years old, he was in a gang. He got into a fight with another gang member named Laramiun Byrd and he killed him. 12 years into his prison sentence, Laramium Byrd's mother, Mary Johnson, wanted to find the person and talk to the person who had murdered her son. This was shortly after he got out of prison. He and Mary came to our booth to tell their story. Let's listen. That was, again, in 2011.

Mary Johnson: You and I met at Stillwater Prison. I wanted to know if you were in the same mindset of what I remember from court where I wanted to go over and hurt you, but you are not that 16-year-old. You are a grown man. I shared with you about my son.

Oshea Israel: And he became human to me. What I admitted to you was like, "Okay, this guy is real." Then when it was time to go, you broke down and started shedding tears, and the initial thing to do was just try to hold you up as best I can, just hug you like I would my own mother.

Mary Johnson: I began to say, "I just hugged the man that murdered my son." I instantly knew that all that anger and the animosity, all the stuff I had in my heart for 12 years for you, I knew it was over, that I had totally forgiven you.

Oshea Israel: As far as receiving forgiveness from you, sometimes I still don't know how to take it because I haven't totally forgiven myself yet. There's still a process that I'm going through.

Mary Johnson: I treat you as I would treat my son, and our relationship is beyond belief. We live next door to one another.

Oshea Israel: Yes. We actually bump into each other all the time leaving in and out of the house. Our conversations, they come from, "Boy, how come you ain't called over here to check on me in a couple of days? [laughs] You ain't even asked me if I need my garbage to go out." I find those things funny because it's a relationship with a mother for real.

Mary Johnson: Well, my natural son is no longer here. I didn't see him graduate. You're going to college. I'll have the opportunity to see you graduate. I didn't see him get married. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to experience that with you.

Oshea Israel: You still believe in me, and the fact that you can do it despite how much pain I caused you, it's amazing. I love you, lady.

Mary Johnson: I love you too, son.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: A StoryCorps classic from 2011 as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of StoryCorps, which is this actual day, with StoryCorps founder Dave Isay. Dave, what was the listener reaction like to that segment on StoryCorps at the time, because for many people, I would think-- if somebody murdered one of my kids, it's unimaginable to become that close and like a surrogate parent even as she did to your own child's murderer? How did people react to that?

Dave Isay: Well, people were very moved by this. This is not necessarily a typical every-week StoryCorps story, but I think what StoryCorps does is illuminate for us how life can be lived at its best and fullest. We've had 700,000 people participate. We've had more than 1,000 broadcasts since the beginning. Our first broadcast was also on Brian Lehrer. I like to think these stories-- this goes back to what Kai was saying during the break that they remind us what really matters and shake us on the shoulder and give us hope.

The news is often so bad and things seem hopeless, but when you actually, and you know this from your show, when you actually listen to people, there is hope and people are basically good. We have to remind ourselves of that over and over and over again. I think this was a very vivid reminder of that. Do you want to play a more recent piece of tape from them as well? Do we have time for that?

Brian Lehrer: No. We have time for one more clip and here's what it's going to be. When you came on a few years ago after the 1,000th StoryCorps interview, I asked if you had any plans for anything explicitly political in searching for common ground kind of way like encouraging people who might know each other personally but disagree politically on important things to have a personal/political StoryCorps thread, and you did it.

You have a StoryCorps thread called One Small Step. We'll play an example in a minute. You want to talk about how this works and identify the two members of Congress doing this that's in the clip we're going to play?

Dave Isay: Yes. I have more than a thread. Someone did play me the piece of tape where you actually suggested that we do this. It's an important piece of the body of work at StoryCorps, which is quite a bit bigger than when we launched with you 20 years ago. We tested this for about the last six years. We launched it about a year and a half ago, but up until we started One Small Step, everyone who had participated in StoryCorps knew and loved each other.

With One Small Step, we put strangers for the first time together across the political divide into StoryCorps booths or sometimes virtually using the virtual platform that we have to have conversations, not about politics, but just about who they are, about their lives under the premise that it's hard to hate up close. We launched about a year and a half ago, and this is probably going to be the most important thing we ever do. It's incredibly powerful, and it's about us--

This is not about arguing. We don't actually put families together. This is really about toxic polarization, the fact that more and more we don't see each other as human beings across the political divides and the dangers that that can pose. It's called affective or toxic polarization. We're doing our best as you said earlier. StoryCorps is about listening better, and we have a long, long, long way to go in the country. The trick is to never give up.

This is a clip. We're doing some stuff in DC as well, which is very different than us. I have to say, every kind of person who has participated in StoryCorps over the years, and facilitators who are the people who bear witness to these interviews, we've had maybe more than 1,000 of them who have served a tour of duty with StoryCorps in the booths, they always dread when they see a politician on the schedule because they can't get off script. With One Small Step, it's actually working for the first time, politicians at StoryCorps.

This is Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota's Third District, and Tim Burchett, a far-right Republican from Tennessee's Second District. We recorded this the day we launched, which was during the congressional baseball game this past summer. Spoiler alert, in their conversation, they say I love you at the end, which given the situation in Congress right now is kind of stunning.

Brian Lehrer: Dean Phillips speaks first. Here we go.

Dean Phillips: You are the funniest person in the US Congress. You know that?

Tim Burchett: I don't know about that.

Dean Phillips: You bring levity to a place that needs it so much, and I'm grateful for that. Going to your district was really illuminating to me. I saw the beauty, and I recognized that so few of us-- You haven't been to New York. I've never been to Tennessee. It gets me thinking like, "That's what we got to do. We got to break bread together, go to each other's homes." The people unwilling to talk to one another are the problem, period. It doesn't matter your politics.

Tim Burchett: Yes. I don't know if you've seen this, but I've been in elevators when people will get in and see somebody in there and then they'll turn around and get out.

Dean Phillips: Yes, I've seen it too.

Tim Burchett: I'm like, "Dude, are y'all 12? We got a freaking country to run, man."

Dean Phillips: Frankly, I think it's a dereliction of duty to avoid conversation in a place that's designed to provoke it and promote it.

Tim Burchett: Agreed. I'm a conservative if you look at my voting record.

Dean Phillips: I can't even see your record because it's so far to the right, my peripheral vision.

Tim Burchett: I know. I know. Like me and you, when we agree, we agree, we disagree, we disagree, but at the end of the day, we're still friends.

Dean Phillips: Yes. If we're not modeling it, why would we expect the country to be kind and respectful and love each other?

Tim Burchett: Thank you, brother. Love you, buddy.

Dean Phillips: Love you too, man.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Dean Phillips and Tim Burchett, one Democrat, one Republican as part of StoryCorps. Dave, I see that people can do this for themselves using your online toolkit or you offer StoryCorps facilitators. What do StoryCorps facilitators do?

Dave Isay: We launched in Grand Central Terminal all those years ago, and then we--

Brian Lehrer: With me.

Dave Isay: With you.

Brian Lehrer: I was honored to tell people that story. I was so honored that you invited me to do kind of a ceremonial first conversation with none other than the great oral historian in his own right, Studs Terkel, who was 81 at the time.

Dave Isay: No, he was 93.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, 93? Okay, I misremembered the age.

Dave Isay: He flew to New York at 93 to cut the ribbon on the booth.

Brian Lehrer: You were off to the races.

Dave Isay: Yes, indeed. We started in Grand Central. It was actually not very popular when we started. People had no idea what we were trying to do. We had lots of empty spaces, but eventually, it got extremely popular. We went national and we have these mobile Airstream trailers that travel around. The facilitators are the people who guide you through the experience. It's a pretty amazing job. We're having a reunion tonight of staff.

Facilitators, when you ask them what they've learned at the end of serving with StoryCorps, you always get the same answer, which is some version of the Anne Frank quote that people are basically good. Again, I think that StoryCorps, not based on any kind of hallmarky ideas but based on the truth of having been on the road, in the field, in the dirt, in the arena, reminds us that we have to remember to see the best in people and that nobody is the worst thing they've ever done.

All these important things that are so easy to forget in the scrum of all the bad news that's coming at us and the fact that we have lost that ability to be face-to-face with people, which is an important part in humanizing one another. Yes, people can go to booths and record, or we have an app that we've had for a bunch of years that makes it possible. You can download the app. It's the StoryCorps app. If you want to, you can download it and record an interview with a loved one, and with one tap, it goes to the Library of Congress.

Those are the key elements of StoryCorps, the fact that you have this structure and you have the ability, everyday people have the ability to upload it to the Library of Congress and be reminded that their stories matter, that all of our stories are important enough to be part of American history, which is a lesson, something that I think both of us had a hunch about 20 years ago today and has been proven over and over and over and over again over the last 20 years.

Brian Lehrer: StoryCorps, now heading into its second 20 years. StoryCorps founder Dave Isay, congratulations. Thank you for sharing it with Brian Lehrer Show listeners so many times, and thanks for coming on today. Congratulations on 20.

Dave Isay: Thanks, Brian. Thanks for all you did to get this off the ground.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.