Explore Trouble the Land, the revived Peabody Award–winning series documenting Southern freedom movements, now reimagined as a multimedia project on Southern Spaces. As someone who helped guide the original series, I’m pleased to share more about its return.
For many years, the Peabody Award–winning radio series Will the Circle Be Unbroken has lived in the memories of those who heard it when it first aired. The series documented the voices, struggles, and triumphs of Southern freedom movements with a depth and integrity that few productions have matched. Today, I’m pleased to share that this landmark work is being revived and transformed for a new generation.
Under the leadership of Allen Tullos at Emory University, the series has been reborn as Trouble the Land, a multimedia online project that brings together audio, transcripts, images, and historical context. While the prohibitive cost of music rights prevents us from including the original musical elements, the heart of the series remains intact: the voices of the people who shaped the movements that reshaped the South.
The redevelopment begins with the release of the five Atlanta programs, now available on the Southern Spaces platform. Montgomery and other cities will follow across 2026. It has taken years of work to bring this project to fruition, but I believe the result will give these important voices a permanent home — freely accessible to the public and preserved for future generations.
I invite readers of Black Politics to explore the first installment of Trouble the Land and to help spread the word as additional episodes are released. The stories captured in this series remain vital to understanding the South’s past and imagining its future.
What makes this revival especially meaningful is the immediacy of the voices preserved in the Prelude to the Atlanta Movement. These recordings capture people speaking from inside the constraints and contradictions of mid‑century Atlanta — not with the distance of hindsight, but with the urgency of lived experience. Their reflections on fear, dignity, political exclusion, and the first stirrings of collective power offer an unfiltered window into the forces that shaped the modern South. I hope readers will spend time with these voices; their clarity and candor remain as instructive today as when they were first recorded.
Hear the Voices That Shaped the Atlanta Movement
Unfiltered testimony from Black Atlantans navigating segregation, police intimidation, political exclusion, and the earliest stirrings of organized power. These recordings preserve the emotional truth of a city on the edge of transformation.
Featured Episode: Trouble the Land — Prelude to the Atlanta Movement
Trouble the Land — A Peabody Legacy Reborn
Explore the revival of Will the Circle Be Unbroken, now reimagined as Trouble the Land — a multimedia series featuring audio, transcripts, images, and historical context documenting Southern freedom movements.
Why This Episode Matters
The Prelude to the Atlanta Movement contains some of the most candid accounts of mid-century Atlanta ever recorded. From the rise of Black voting power to the city’s first Black police officers, these voices reveal the tensions, strategies, and courage that shaped a generation — in their own words, at the moment they were living it.
About Steve Suitts
Steve Suitts is a Contributing Editor at Black Politics and a longtime leader in Southern civil rights research and advocacy. He served as Executive Director of the Southern Regional Council (SRC), where he helped guide the creation and production of the original Peabody Award–winning radio series Will the Circle Be Unbroken. Suitts has spent decades documenting the history, politics, and lived experiences of Southern communities, and his work continues to shape public understanding of the region’s freedom movements. He is a member of the Black Politics Advisory Council.
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