Summary
In 1989, a Black 12-year-old girl in New Orleans found the David Duke phenomenon, and Duke himself, hard to comprehend. So she called Duke on the phone to ask him some questions.
In this Slow Burn interlude: how a budding journalist outdid the professionals. Plus, why we won’t be interviewing David Duke for our series.
Season 4 of Slow Burn is produced by Josh Levin and Christopher Johnson. Mixing by Paul Mounsey. Slow Burn’s production assistant is Madeline Ducharme and Sophie Summergrad is the podcast’s assistant producer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, slow burn listeners, we've got something different for you this timeout. |
| 0:04.1 | This week, you'll get to hear a preview of our bonus episodes for Slate Plus members, |
| 0:09.2 | special shows where we go deeper into our story. |
| 0:12.6 | Stay tuned for excerpts from my conversations with Anne Levy, |
| 0:15.8 | the Holocaust survivor who confronted David Duke in 1989, |
| 0:20.5 | Eli Saslow, who wrote a great book about the |
| 0:23.3 | modern white nationalist movement, and Tofer Grace, who played Duke in the Spike Lee film Black Klansman. |
| 0:30.2 | But first, I want to introduce you to someone you've probably never heard of. |
| 0:35.5 | Her name is Joanna Burnett, and I've been thinking about her a lot |
| 0:39.1 | as I've been working on this season of Slow Burn. Joanna is three years older than I am, and like |
| 0:45.3 | me, she grew up in New Orleans. In 1989, when she was 12, she did something really gutsy. |
| 0:53.8 | It all started when she noticed that one particular |
| 0:56.1 | story was dominating the local news. I remember it was almost every single day. There was |
| 1:03.5 | coverage on this former Ku Klux Klanzman who was running for office in an American city. |
| 1:12.3 | Joanna was looking for a topic for her school's social studies fair. |
| 1:17.0 | When David Duke won his race for the State House of Representatives, |
| 1:20.6 | she knew what she wanted to do. |
| 1:26.5 | I had just found his name and number in the white pages, |
| 1:31.4 | and I think I was surprised it was just right there. |
| 1:39.1 | On March 12, 1989, she grabbed a tape recorder and her parents' speakerphone and headed out to the garage. |
| 1:47.0 | And then she started dialing. |
| 1:50.0 | Hi, my name is Joanna Burnett. |
... |
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