91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn

Black Mountain College And The FBI

Main Building of the former Black Mountain College, on the grounds of Camp Rockmont, a summer camp for boys.
Howard Morland

In the 1940's and 1950's, several professors at Black Mountain College in Western North Carolina attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigations for their progressive political beliefs.

  Increasing anti-communist paranoia fueled a federal investigation, along with suspicion about whether or not the school was inappropriately using funds from the G.I. Bill to pay for tuition.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Carolina Public Press's investigative reporter Jon Elliston about uncovering the details of the Bureau's probe.

Hady Mawajdeh is a native Texan, born and raised in San Antonio. He listened to Fresh Air growing up and fell in love with public radio. He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication at Texas State University and specialized in electronic media. He worked at NPR affiliate stations KUT and KUTX in Austin, Texas as an intern, producer, social media coordinator, and a late-night deejay.
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.