How Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’ captures the spirit of the Deep South

By Leoneda Inge,

Published May 5, 2025 at 12:22 PM EDT

Director Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners, is a Southern gothic horror film set in 1930s Mississippi. We talk to African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal and musician Lois Deloatch about the film’s approach to race, spirituality and music.

Guests

Mark Anthony Neal, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African & African American Studies and Chair of the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University

Lois Deloatch, musician, recording artist and storyteller

Due South

Leoneda Inge

Leoneda Inge is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Leoneda has been a radio journalist for more than 30 years, spending most of her career at WUNC as the Race and Southern Culture reporter. Leoneda’s work includes stories of race, slavery, memory and monuments. She has won "Gracie" awards, an Alfred I. duPont Award and several awards from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association (RTDNA). In 2017, Leoneda was named "Journalist of Distinction" by the National Association of Black Journalists.

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Stacia Brown

Stacia L. Brown is a writer and audio storyteller who has worked in public media since 2016, when she partnered with the Association of Independents in Radio and Baltimore's WEAA 88.9 to create The Rise of Charm City, a narrative podcast that centered community oral histories. She has worked for WAMU’s daily news radio program, 1A, as well as WUNC’s The State of Things. Stacia was a producer for WUNC's award-winning series, Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon and a co-creator of the station's first children's literacy podcast, The Story Stables. She served as a senior producer for two Ten Percent Happier podcasts, Childproof and More Than a Feeling. In early 2023, she was interim executive producer for WNYC’s The Takeaway.

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