Walter Edgar's Journal

This week we will be talking with Nathan Spainhour, author of The South Carolina BBQ Project (2025, Good Printed Things). Nathan is a designer and educator whose work explores the relationship between design, place, and cultural narrative.His book began as his MFA thesis in Graphic Design and has since evolved into an ongoing documentation of barbecue’s visual culture – from signage and typography to architecture and everyday ephemera – situated within the broader history of Southern foodways. The South Carolina BBQ Project is a lot of fun. Part history, part design study, and part love letter to the state’s most treasured foodway, the book explores the culture of barbecue across the Palmetto state.

This week our we are bringing you another episode in our occasional series which explores “South Carolina from A to Z” in depth. South Carolina from A to Z is our sister podcast that brings you “bite-sized,”one-minute topics from the South Carolina Encyclopedia.Listeners Virgil and Mary Ann Hobbs suggested that our next episode of A-Z in depth focus on topics that begin with the letters that give Scrabble players their highest scores - what a great idea! So, today's topics begin with Q, X, or Z.

This week we'll be talking with Dr. Jennifer Whitmer Taylor of Duquesne University about her book, Rebirth: Creating the Museum of the Reconstruction Era and the Future of the House Museum (2025, University of SC Press).In Rebirth, Taylor provides a compelling account of how to reenvision the historic house museum. Using the Museum of the Reconstruction Era—known as the Woodrow Wilson Family Home for most of its many years as a house museum—as a case study, Taylor explores the challenges and possibilities that face public history practitioners and museum professionals who provide complex interpretations of contested public memory.

Today we’ll be switching things up a bit. Instead of Walter and me interviewing a guest we will have a guest interviewing Walter.The conversation is part of the Spring 2025 program put on by the University South Caroliniana Society: “'E' is for Edgar – Conversation and Barbeque with Walter.” Talking with Walter today is Beryl Dakers, president of the Society and long-time producer with SCETV. Today's episode is part of our celebration of Walter Edgar's Journal's 25th year.

This fall we are celebrating 25 years of Walter Edgar’s Journal!We thought that a good way to start that celebration would be to look back on the launch of our podcast. So, this week we bring you an encore of our final *broadcast* episode of May 2023.Our guest was the Director of SC Public Radio, Sean Birch. We reminisced about the Journal’s beginnings and present highlights from our years on the air. And we talked about how morphing Walter Edgar’s Journal from a weekly broadcast into a semi-monthly podcast would allow us to focus more intently on our mission to explore South Carolina’s history and its culture.

This week we're speaking with Dr. Henry N. Tisdale, former president of Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC. This Kingstree native has had a long and distinguished academic career, earning his undergraduate degree at Claflin in 1965 and, eventually, becoming the first African American to earn a doctorate in mathematics from Dartmouth.

This week, we revisit our conversation with Ben Beard, author of The South Never Plays Itself: A Film Buff’s Journey Through the South on Screen.

In his book Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church (2025, Crown) Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Kevin Sack explores the inspiring history that brought the church to that moment, and the depth of the desecration committed in its fellowship hall.In this expanded episode of Walter Edgar's Journal, Sack joins us to explore the story of Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston.