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**Walter Edgar’s Journal**

From books to barbecue, and current events to Colonial history, historian and author Walter Edgar delves into the arts, culture, and history of South Carolina and the American South. Produced by South Carolina Public Radio.

Latest Episodes:

**Once upon a time in space: The story of Ronald McNair** Sep 18, 2026
Show notes

Ronald McNair plays the soprano saxophone while floating in the middeck of the Space Shuttle Challenger during his first flight STS-41B. February 14, 1984.(NASA)
This week we will be talking with Carl McNair, brother of the late Dr. Ronald McNair, NASA astronaut and Lake City, South Carolina, native. Ron McNair’s story is told in the four-part series, Once Upon a Time in Space, currently streaming on PBS and ETV Passport.
Ron McNair’s story is singular: he grew up in a segregated South Carolina and went on to earn a PHD in physics. With the beginning of space shuttle program, NASA chose 35 applicants from a pool of over 10,000 astronaut candidates. In 1984 he became the second African American in space. Though he lost his life in the Challenger disaster in 1986, his story continues to inspire generations of young South Carolinians who want to reach for the stars.

A sliced okra pod — **Seeking out the vanishing flavors of traditional Southern foods** Sep 05, 2026
Show notes

(SCETV)
With every growing season, the South is in danger of losing an ingredient that’s shaped our state’s flavor, history, and culture. This week, we will be talking with Chef Kevin Mitchell and food historian David Shields, hosts of the SCETV and PBS series The Savers of Flavor about their ongoing search for the vanishing ingredients of Southern cuisine. Over the course of four episodes David and Kevin embark on a quest to seek out and rescue those ingredients before they are lost forever.

**Daniel Morgan: A revolutionary life** Aug 21, 2026
Show notes

Portrait of Daniel Morgan by Charles Willson Peale, late 18th century.(Charles Willson Peale / Viginia Museum of History and Culture,1960.1, Gift of Percy Robert Blythe)
This week Walter will talk with historian Albert Louis Zambone about Revolutionary War hero Daniel Morgan.
On January 17, 1781, at Cowpens, South Carolina, the notorious British cavalry officer Banastre Tarleton and his legion were destroyed along with the cream of Lord Cornwallis’s troops. The man who planned and executed this stunning American victory was Daniel Morgan. Once a barely literate backcountry laborer, Morgan now stood at the pinnacle of American martial success.
In his book Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life (2018, Westholme Publishing) the first biography of this iconic figure in forty years, historian Albert Zambone presents Morgan as the quintessential American everyman, who rose through his own dogged determination from poverty and obscurity to become one of the great battlefield commanders in American history. Using social history and other advances in the discipline that had not been available to earlier biographers, the author provides an engrossing portrait of this storied personality of America’s founding era—a common man in uncommon times.

**Empire of Ashes** Aug 07, 2026
Show notes

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.(Oilstreet)
This week we’ll be talking with Charleston author James M. Scott, author of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War (2026, W.W. Norton & Company). With startling immediacy, Empire of Ashes illuminates the moral dilemma at the center of America’s decision to inflict total war upon Japan.
A thorough historian and a talented writer Scott brings to life the struggles – moral, scientific, and practical - faced by the Truman administration in the closing days of World War II.

**Backcountry resistance: South Carolina's militia and the fight for American independence** Jul 17, 2026
Show notes

The battle of Cowpens (Don Troiani / U.S. National Guard via Wikimedia Commons)
This week we will be talking with Carl P. Borick, author of Backcountry Resistance: South Carolina's Militia and the Fight for American Independence (2026, USC Press).
As the title indicates, Carl’s book focuses on rank-and-file militiamen of the backcountry and explores how these ordinary men were recruited, armed, fed, and motivated.
Drawing on underused pension records and state claims, he reconstructs their everyday realities and their battlefield experiences. He also examines the war's devastating effects on civilians, including enslaved people and women, who played crucial roles in the struggle.

The South Carolina BBQ Project Jun 19, 2026

Show notes

Nathan Spainhour(Courtesy of the author)

This week we will be talking with Nathan Spainhour, author of The South Carolina BBQ Project (2025, Good Printed Things). Nathan is a designer and educator whose work explores the relationship between design, place, and cultural narrative.

His book began as his MFA thesis in Graphic Design and has since evolved into an ongoing documentation of barbecue’s visual culture – from signage and typography to architecture and everyday ephemera – situated within the broader history of Southern foodways. The South Carolina BBQ Project is a lot of fun. Part history, part design study, and part love letter to the state’s most treasured foodway, the book explores the culture of barbecue across the Palmetto state.

Murder in the Lowcountry? Call the Mudflats Murder Club Jun 05, 2026

Show notes

Brian Thiem( Courtesty of the author)

This our guest will be novelist Brian Thiem, from Hilton Head Island, and we'll be talking about his series of novels about the Mudflats Murder Club.

Brian draws from his experience as a former detective and cold case investigator, to craft suspenseful stories set on the fictional Spartina Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry. His latest book in the series is A Killer in the Cordgrass (2026, Severn River Publishing/Simon and Schuster).

**South Carolina from A-Z in Depth - The Scrabble episode!** May 15, 2026
Show notes

Walter Edgar and Alfred Turner( SCETV)
This week our we are bringing you another episode in our occasional series which explores “South Carolina from A to Z” in depth. South Carolina from A to Z is our sister podcast that brings you “bite-sized,”one-minute topics from the South Carolina Encyclopedia.
Listeners Virgil and Mary Ann Hobbs suggested that our next episode of A-Z in depth focus on topics that begin with the letters that give Scrabble players their highest scores - what a great idea! So, today's topics begin with Q, X, or Z.

We Have Known Rivers: Masks, Tree, & Moon, 1992 by Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934). Batik and paint on cotton mounted on board, 40 x 34 inches. — **Revelations: The Art of Leo Twiggs** May 01, 2026
Show notes

<i>We Have Known Rivers: Masks, Tree, & Moon</i>, 1992 by Leo Twiggs (American, b. 1934). Batik and paint on cotton mounted on board, 40 x 34 inches.(Private Collection. Image © Leo Twiggs.)
This week we will be talking with Sara from the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, art historian Frank Martin, and with artist Leo Twiggs about his exhibition at the Gibbes called Revelations: The Art of Leo Twiggs. At 92 years of age, Leo Twiggs has a perspective on life in South Carolina that covers fundamental changes in our state and our nation. His art is both intensely personal and a commentary of the struggles that both Black and White South Carolinians share.
The show ends May 3rd at the Gibbes and opens at the Florence Museum June 1 for an extended run.

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