Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier 1: The Bus Ride
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On February 12, 1946, a Black soldier was heading home from WWII when he was brutally beaten by a white police officer in South Carolina. No one knew the identity of the police officer. No one even knew the town where it happened.
When the famous radio host Orson Welles heard about the crime, he pledged to solve the mystery, week-by-week, on the air.
Today, episode 1 of our new series Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier, about an incident in a small, southern town that led to the desegregation of the U.S. military.
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Thanks to Richard Gergel for his book Unexampled Courage and Indiana University’s Lilly Library for archival audio. Music from Matthias Bossi and Bill Frisell for music.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We want to shout out a fellow show in the Radiotopia family. |
| 0:03.0 | Check out NeverPost. |
| 0:05.0 | It's a show about the internet for the internet. |
| 0:07.0 | So whether you're chronically online or struggle to keep up, |
| 0:10.0 | NeverPost has stories for you. |
| 0:13.0 | The show explores why the internet is the way it is, |
| 0:15.0 | from the real-life stories that captivate online circles |
| 0:19.0 | to the online obsessions that are finding their way |
| 0:21.3 | into everyday life. You can hear about how content creators are capitalizing on ice raids |
| 0:26.2 | and how some social media users are trying to rebuild their attention span. New episodes come out |
| 0:32.2 | every week. Listen to Never Post wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:37.2 | Radiotopia. |
| 0:39.5 | From PRX. |
| 0:41.5 | From PRX is Radiotopia. |
| 0:43.1 | This is Radio Diaries. I'm Joe Richmond. |
| 0:45.6 | Hello, this is Orson Wells. |
| 0:47.8 | I've come to visit with you for a few minutes. |
| 0:49.5 | And with your permission, every week at this time, we'll have a little conversation about |
| 0:53.0 | people and the things they're doing all over the world. In 1946, Orson Wells, the director of Citizen Kane, was at the |
| 1:00.8 | height of his fame. At the time, he had a national radio show called Orson Welles Commentaries on ABC. |
| 1:07.1 | I'll try to have a story for each time, and I'm going to speak my mind about the news. |
| 1:13.3 | You know, we don't have to agree on everything to be friends. |
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