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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Free Thinking

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Slavery Stories

Slavery Stories

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Slavery Stories

A long-lost classic now published and Esi Edugyan's Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel.

A long-lost classic by William Melvin Kelley, who coined the term 'woke' back in 1962, and Esi Edugyan's Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel, Washington Black.

A long lost classic by William Melvin Kelley, who coined the term "woke" back in 1962 in a New York Times article, Esi Edugyan's Booker shortlisted novel, and  new research on slavery with historians Christienna Fryar, Kevin Waite, and Andrea Livesey.   Laurence Scott presents. 

A Different Drummer was the debut novel of Kelley - first published when he was 24.  Compared to William Faulkner and James Baldwin, it was forgotten until an article about it earlier this year.  Kelley died aged 79 in 2017.  His story imagines the day the black population of a Southern US town decide to get up and all go. Canadian writer Esi Edugyan has imagined a black slave becoming a scientist in her novel Washington Black.   

You can hear more Free Thinking discussion on American culture and history here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jzmf6

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Image: William Melvin Kelley, New York 1962
Photo credit: Bill Anderson

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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