The origins of the Black Panther Party were as a group that wanted to provide self-defense and support to communities overlooked and abused by the authorities. American government and media portrayals dismissed the Panthers as thugs, but filmmaker Dante James wants to tell the true story of the revolutionary members of the radical organization. James, an assistant director of the African Cultural Center at North Carolina State University, is at work on a film called, "The Story of Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party" about the famed co-founder of the notorious group. Host Frank Stasio talks about it with James and David Hilliard, a founding member of the Black Panther Party.
Alex Granados joined The State of Things in July 2010. He got his start in radio as an intern for the show in 2005 and loved it so much that after trying his hand as a government reporter, reader liaison, features, copy and editorial page editor at a small newspaper in Manassas, Virginia, he returned to WUNC. Born in Baltimore but raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Alex moved to Raleigh in time to do third grade twice and adjust to public school after having spent years in the sheltered confines of a Christian elementary education. Alex received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a minor in philosophy, which basically means that he used to think he was really smart but realized he wasn’t in time to switch majors. Fishing, reading science fiction, watching crazy movies, writing bad short stories, and shooting pool are some of his favorite things to do. Alex still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he is holding out for astronaut.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.