Visit Project Project Details
Urban Roots is a podcast that tells little known stories of urban history, highlighting the stories of women, people of color, and other marginalized groups in an effort to preserve, remember, and hear their important perspectives, contributions, and lessons.
American urban history is expansive, yet there are many stories that have not been told and many topics that have not been fully explored. We often take history for granted, skirting around subjects as if we already know everything there is to know about a historical event, person, or place. But, what do we really know? This podcast challenges you to think beyond the familiar, and broaden the scope of what we see as urban history and conceptualize what shapes our communities.
Subjects or Themes
African American, Modern History, African Americans and the Black Diaspora, African American Culture, etc.
Project Language(s)
English
Time Period
Geographic Location
Project Categories
Content Type
Oral History, Sound, Archival audio, teacher resources, urban planning, historic preservation, public history
Target Audience(s)
Creators
Deqah Hussein-Wetzel - a Somali-American historic preservationist based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Vanessa Quirk - A cities journalist and podcaster based in New York City.
Year(s)
1
Host Institution / Affiliation / Project Location
Urbanist Media
Labor and Support
The first season of Urban Roots took six-months to produce and it includes four episodes focused on Cincinnati's Black urban history. Our producers (Deqah, Vanessa, and Connor) each spent at least 10-20 hours per week for the first three months and 30-plus hours per week for the remaining three months.
Our other seasons will go in a more national and international direction, but for this season, we wanted to showcase the Lost Voices of Cincinnati series that we began developing in partnership with Invest in Neighborhoods in early 2021. In future seasons we will produce approximately six well researched podcast episodes on lesser told stories of urban history. With support from our listeners, we can spend more time making podcast and less time worrying how to secure funds for future seasons. Please consider donating to Urban Roots at https://fundly.com/urban-roots-podcast-fundraising.
This project is free to the public and can be found at the following locations as well as on our website (www.urbanrootspodcast.com):
Apple: shorturl.at/bgoqO
Stitcher: shorturl.at/hHP58
Spotify: shorturl.at/lqyNS
Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/0g1sjgll
YouTube: shorturl.at/duA06
Project Cost
Partnerships, funding sources, or grant-funding acknowledgement
Partnerships for first season with Invest in Neighborhoods and funded by an ArtsWave Cincinnati Truth & Reconciliation grant.
