White Lies

A new serialized podcast from NPR investigates a 1965 cold case. New episodes every Tuesday starting May 14.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In 1965, the Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Ala. No one was ever held to account. We return to the town where it happened, searching for new leads in an old story.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Episode 2, we unravel the aftermath of the Rev. James Reeb's murder: the arrest of three men and the defense brought at trial. We also track down the last living jurors.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Episode 3, we break down the conspiracy theory that emerged after the Rev. James Reeb's murder: that he was allowed to die or was killed because the civil rights movement needed a white martyr.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Episode 4, we find a woman who says she knows who killed the Rev. James Reeb, because she was there. She's ready — for the first time in more than 50 years — to tell the truth about what she saw.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Episode 5, we search for the fourth attacker while digging into the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black civil rights activist who was murdered in Alabama just weeks before the Rev. James Reeb. Jackson's killer was brought to justice in 2010. We look at his case for strategies to help solve Reeb's.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Episode 6, we reveal the identity of the fourth man who participated in the attack on the Rev. James Reeb.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In our final episode, we examine the legacy of the Rev. James Reeb's death. We speak both to his descendants and to those of one of his attackers, exploring how the trauma and the lies that followed it affected both families.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In 1991, a group of men took over a federal prison in rural Alabama. But these men weren't prisoners, they were immigration detainees, all of them from Cuba. And none of them were serving time for a sentence; they were being indefinitely detained. Who were these men? What in the world had brought them from Cuba to a prison in rural Alabama, and what became of them afterward? On the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace set out to find the men who took over the prison and, in the process, unspool a sprawling story of a mass exodus across the sea, back-channel cold war communiques, family separation, and a secret list.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It all started with a photograph. A photograph from 1991 of a prison takeover in rural Alabama. A photograph of a group of men on the roof of that prison holding a bedsheet scrawled with a message: "Pray for us." In the first episode of the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace go searching for answers to the questions raised by this photograph. Who were these men? What on earth had made them want to take over that prison? And what became of them after? As they search, they uncover a sprawling story: a mass exodus across the sea, a secret list, and the betrayal at the heart of this country's ideals. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in 1991. It didn't start when they were detained in federal prisons. And it didn't start when the government made a secret list of their names in 1984. Instead, it started in the spring of 1980, with one of the largest refugee crises in American history: the Mariel Boatlift. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

During our reporting, we heard one story over and over again: that Fidel Castro had emptied his prisons to fill the boatlift. It's a story that's been told so often and with such conviction that of course it must be true, right? But what if this was more theater than history? What was happening in 1980 in Miami and throughout the country that made this story so compelling? Why did it feel so true to so many people? In Episode 3, we go to Miami to find out. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy