White Lies

NPR

On the morning of August 21, 1991, a group of Cuban detainees took over a federal prison in Talladega, Alabama, and demanded their freedom. But how did they get here? And what became of them after? In season two of NPR's Pulitzer-finalist show, we unspool a decades-long story about immigration, indefinite detention, and a secret list. It's a story about a betrayal at the heart of our country's ideals. And in charting a course to our current moment of crisis at the border, we expose the lies that bind us together.

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Our Editor's Take

The White Lies podcast tells real-life stories about unbelievable lies that have shaped history. NPR produces this intriguing podcast which seeks to find the truth behind those lies.

The first seven-episode season of the White Lies podcast dropped in the summer of 2019. It starts days after the famous Bloody Sunday protests. Three white ministers stood outside a segregated Southern restaurant in 1965. The murder of the Reverend James Reeb will have unimaginable consequences. The president will make a televised speech announcing a new bill because of it. What's most notable is that this murder went unsolved for so long.

The podcast returns to Selma, Alabama, the town where it all started, to tell the story from the beginning. Hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace investigated the case over four years. They interview the last living jurors from the trial for Reeb's murder. They study the conspiracy theories surrounding his death. Was he killed as a white martyr of the civil rights movement? One eyewitness claims to know who killed Reeb because she was at the scene. The final episode of this season of White Lies examines how lies told affected the families involved.

For listeners ready for more intrigue and deception, a second season dropped in 2023. This story begins with a photograph of a group of men in 1991 standing on the top of a federal prison in Alabama. What starts as a prison takeover becomes a tale of a mass exodus from Cuba.

Hosts Chip and Andrew start searching for the men on that prison roof. In their journey to find answers, the team must sue the US State Department and break into a graveyard. They discover a secret list. This has enormous implications for families and US immigration policy.

The White Lies podcast promises intrigue, excitement, and mystery. As more and more lies appear along the way, listeners will discover the truth at the center of each story. Fans of true crime and true-life mysteries may like this podcast.

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Play Trailer

Introducing White Lies

Introducing White Lies

A new serialized podcast from NPR investigates a 1965 cold case. New episodes every Tuesday starting May 14.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Season 2

Season 2: Trailer

Season 2: Trailer

In 1991, a group of men took over a federal prison in rural Alabama. But these men weren't prisoners, they were immigration detainees, all of them from Cuba. And none of them were serving time for a sentence; they were being indefinitely detained. Who were these men? What in the world had brought them from Cuba to a prison in rural Alabama, and what became of them afterward? On the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace set out to find the men who took over the prison and, in the process, unspool a sprawling story of a mass exodus across the sea, back-channel cold war communiques, family separation, and a secret list.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Men on the Roof

The Men on the Roof

It all started with a photograph. A photograph from 1991 of a prison takeover in rural Alabama. A photograph of a group of men on the roof of that prison holding a bedsheet scrawled with a message: "Pray for us." In the first episode of the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace go searching for answers to the questions raised by this photograph. Who were these men? What on earth had made them want to take over that prison? And what became of them after? As they search, they uncover a sprawling story: a mass exodus across the sea, a secret list, and the betrayal at the heart of this country's ideals. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in 1991. It didn't start when they were detained in federal prisons. And it didn't start when the government made a secret list of their names in 1984. Instead, it started in the spring of 1980, with one of the largest refugee crises in American history: the Mariel Boatlift. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

During our reporting, we heard one story over and over again: that Fidel Castro had emptied his prisons to fill the boatlift. It's a story that's been told so often and with such conviction that of course it must be true, right? But what if this was more theater than history? What was happening in 1980 in Miami and throughout the country that made this story so compelling? Why did it feel so true to so many people? In Episode 3, we go to Miami to find out. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Entry Fiction

The Entry Fiction

When President Carter promised to welcome the men and women arriving on the Mariel boatlift with "an open heart and open arms," he had referred to them as refugees. But technically speaking, they weren't refugees. They were classified as entrants, an immigration status with a peculiar legal standing in the United States. While entrants are physically allowed to enter the country, legally they're still at the border, asking to come in. Their presence in the country is known as a legal fiction — specifically, the "entry fiction." So even as Cubans were disembarking boats in droves through the summer of 1980, they were officially still floating off the coast of Key West. And this immigration status followed them to where they went next: an army base in rural Arkansas. In episode 4, the curious case of the militarized border in the middle of the Ozark Mountains. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

On May 18, 1980, a man named Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez arrived in Key West from the port of Mariel. With no family waiting to sponsor him, he was sent by plane to a resettlement camp at an army base. There he was interviewed by the INS and, a few days later, he boarded another plane, this one bound for the federal prison in Atlanta. But wait - he'd committed no crime, so why was the US government detaining him? And how long could they hold him? In Episode 5, the story of Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez and the beginning of the indefinite detention of Mariel Cubans. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In Episode 6, we sneak into the graveyard of the Atlanta federal penitentiary with a radical peace activist to learn more about what happened in the prison in late 1984. A peaceful protest by detainees held in the Atlanta pen resulted in a violent crackdown, and one of the detainees, a man named Jose Hernandez-Mesa, was charged in federal court with inciting a riot. We tell the story of his trial — and the surprising verdict that began reshaping public opinion about the Mariel Cubans who were being detained. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Since we began reporting this story, we've been after a list. A secret list. On it are the names of 2,746 people whom the US government deemed excludable, including the men on the roof. The government has kept this list so secret that at one point it went so far as to classify it. None of the Mariel detainees knew if their name was on the list or not. In fact, nobody knew what names were on the list. Until now. In Episode 7, the story of a list that sparked uprisings, separated families, and changed the trajectory of U.S. immigration policy. And the story of what we learned when we finally got our hands on it. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Excludables

The Excludables

In our final episode of the season, we start researching the names on the secret list of 2,746 Cuban excludables. What we find confirms many of our suspicions about the arbitrariness of how the U.S. government created the list. Our reporting takes us — where else? — to Cuba, to finally track down the men on the roof and hear them tell their own stories. What had they hoped to find in this country and what had they found instead? Finally, our journey takes us to one last interview in a high rise in Vancouver, Canada, where we hear from the man who led the uprising at Talladega, and made the decision to take to the prison's roof to display banners made from bedsheets that read, Pray for Us and Please Media: Justice, Freedom, or Death. Want to hear the first episode of Embedded's next series a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Season 1

Introducing White Lies

Introducing White Lies

A new serialized podcast from NPR investigates a 1965 cold case. New episodes every Tuesday starting May 14.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Murder Of The Rev. James Reeb

The Murder Of The Rev. James Reeb

In 1965, the Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Ala. No one was ever held to account. We return to the town where it happened, searching for new leads in an old story.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Who And The What

The Who And The What

In Episode 2, we unravel the aftermath of the Rev. James Reeb's murder: the arrest of three men and the defense brought at trial. We also track down the last living jurors.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Counternarrative

The Counternarrative

In Episode 3, we break down the conspiracy theory that emerged after the Rev. James Reeb's murder: that he was allowed to die or was killed because the civil rights movement needed a white martyr.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The Sphinx Of Washington Street

The Sphinx Of Washington Street

In Episode 4, we find a woman who says she knows who killed the Rev. James Reeb, because she was there. She's ready — for the first time in more than 50 years — to tell the truth about what she saw.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The X On The Map

The X On The Map

In Episode 5, we search for the fourth attacker while digging into the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black civil rights activist who was murdered in Alabama just weeks before the Rev. James Reeb. Jackson's killer was brought to justice in 2010. We look at his case for strategies to help solve Reeb's.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Learn Not To Hear It

Learn Not To Hear It

In Episode 6, we reveal the identity of the fourth man who participated in the attack on the Rev. James Reeb.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A Dangerous Kind Of Self-Delusion

A Dangerous Kind Of Self-Delusion

In our final episode, we examine the legacy of the Rev. James Reeb's death. We speak both to his descendants and to those of one of his attackers, exploring how the trauma and the lies that followed it affected both families.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy