If you follow boxing, you've heard of Claressa Shields. At the 2012 Olympics, she became the first American woman to win gold in boxing. She repeated the feat 4 years later, becoming the first American boxer — woman or otherwise — to win consecutive medals. Now, she's the subject of a new movie called The Fire Inside, tracing her journey to Olympic stardom.

Claressa Shields' story was one of our earliest at Radio Diaries. We gave her a tape recorder and asked her to document her journey leading up to the 2012 Olympics. She was sixteen at the time. Today, we revisit the story of Claressa Shields — before the world knew who she was.

The Fire Insidecomes out exclusively in theaters on Christmas Day.

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Former Oklahoma senator Fred Harris died recently, at 94 years old. In 1967, Fred Harris and 10 senators came together and released the Kerner Report, a 1400-page explanation of the causes of the protests that filled American cities that summer. It was an instant — and unlikely — bestseller, selling over half a million copies in just three weeks, getting shoutouts by celebrities like Marlon Brando, and sparking debates on news programs throughout the country. The book talked about white racism at a time when that phrase was mostly used by Black activists, not white politicians. Fred Harris was the last surviving member of the Kerner Commission.

You can read the full Kerner Report here.

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November 23, 1936 was a good day for recorded music. Two men, an ocean apart, sat before a microphone and began to play. One, Pablo Casals, was a cello prodigy who had performed for the Queen of Spain. The other, Robert Johnson, played guitar and was a regular in the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. These recordings would change music history.
This episode originally aired on NPR in 2011.

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