The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy
- Episodes
- 951
- Released
- daily
- Latest episode
- Nov 14, 2026
About the podcast
The Griot is a modern historical, cinematic, movie, and podcast platform inspired by the African griot, the ancient storyteller and keeper of legacy. We bring history, action, drama, fiction, documentaries, culture, and untold stories to life through powerful visual and audio storytelling. Stories. Roots. Legacy.
Episodes 951
Tottenham, 1985: Broadwater Farm, the Tottenham Three and the Appeal That Quashed Their Convictions
After Cynthia Jarrett collapsed and died during a police search of her home, a night of disorder swept the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham in October 1985, and PC Keith Blakelock, a forty-year-old father of …
Show notes
After Cynthia Jarrett collapsed and died during a police search of her home, a night of disorder swept the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham in October 1985, and PC Keith Blakelock, a forty-year-old father of three, was killed as he protected firefighters. Three men were convicted of his murder. Four years later, a scientific test on the police interview notes undid every conviction.
The episode follows the record: the six charged, the three boys too young to be tried lawfully, the 1987 murder convictions of Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite, and the electrostatic analysis that indicated the incriminating passages of Silcott's interview notes were written later. It covers the Crown's 1991 concession, the officers' acquittal at their own trial, the compensation paid, the 2014 trial of Nicholas Jacobs that ended in not guilty by ten to two - and the fact that no conviction for the killing has ever stood.Antigua, 1736: The Coronation Plot, the Commissioners' Report and the Executions That Followed
In October 1736 an enslaved man named Court danced with a wicker shield and a lance in a pasture outside St. John's, and Antigua's justices read it as a Coromantee king declaring war. Seventeen days later the …
Show notes
In October 1736 an enslaved man named Court danced with a wicker shield and a lance in a pasture outside St. John's, and Antigua's justices read it as a Coromantee king declaring war. Seventeen days later the executions began. This episode follows what the commissioners said the dance meant, and what the record could not prove.
The episode covers the commissioners' case against Court - known in Antigua today as Prince Klaas - and the carpenter Tomboy: the oath with grave dirt and cock's blood, the plan built around a ball, the confessions under an act that allowed torture, used three times and then abandoned. It carries the governor's own letters doubting the executions were endless, the final count of eighty-eight people killed, and the other side of the record: no gunpowder and no weapons ever found, the historian Kwasi Konadu's reading of the dance as a ceremony of acclamation, and the free Black men convicted by legislative attainder whose act the king in council repealed in 1738.Berbice, 1763: Coffy Offered the Governor Half the Colony
In 1763 the enslaved people of the Dutch colony of Berbice rose under a cooper named Coffy, who wrote to the governor with an offer: the Dutch keep the coast, his people keep the interior - half of Berbice …
Show notes
In 1763 the enslaved people of the Dutch colony of Berbice rose under a cooper named Coffy, who wrote to the governor with an offer: the Dutch keep the coast, his people keep the interior - half of Berbice. This is the rising, the letters, and the fleet Amsterdam sent in answer.
The episode follows the colony of 350 Europeans and about four thousand enslaved people, the February rising, the broken surrender at the Peereboom plantation, and Coffy's letters - written at dictation, warning that the fighting would last until there is no Christian left in Berbice. It covers Governor van Hoogenheim's stall for reinforcements as the historian Marjoleine Kars reads it, Coffy's death by his own hand according to the rebel captain Accabre, Atta's last stand, and the court that tried one hundred and one rebels and sentenced fifty-three to death. It closes with the 2021 exhibition of Coffy's letters by the Dutch National Archives.Jamaica, 1739: Cudjoe, Guthrie and the Ten Shillings Paid for Every Runaway
After decades of war the colony of Jamaica could not win, Colonel John Guthrie walked unarmed into the Maroon town of Cudjoe and concluded a peace: freedom forever, fifteen hundred acres, and a duty to return …
Show notes
After decades of war the colony of Jamaica could not win, Colonel John Guthrie walked unarmed into the Maroon town of Cudjoe and concluded a peace: freedom forever, fifteen hundred acres, and a duty to return runaways. The Assembly's act of May 1739 fixed the price of that duty at ten shillings a head.
The episode follows the war the barracks of 1733 were built to end, the cockpits where a column could be trapped, the ground where Cudjoe chose to wait, and the hat swapped with a doctor as a sign of trust. It walks the treaty's fifteen articles - hostilities to cease, land at Trelawny, roads to be cut, two white superintendents to live with the Maroons - and then the act that confirmed them, from the five-hundred-pound penalty for seizing a Maroon to the manumission of five enslaved guides, paid for at forty and thirty pounds each.Jamaica, 1976: The State of Emergency, the Detainees and the Election Held Under It
In June 1976, days after a claim that the Jamaica Labour Party planned to overthrow the government, Prime Minister Michael Manley declared a state of emergency. Nearly six hundred people were detained over the …
Show notes
In June 1976, days after a claim that the Jamaica Labour Party planned to overthrow the government, Prime Minister Michael Manley declared a state of emergency. Nearly six hundred people were detained over the months that followed, most of them from the opposition, and the general election that December was held under it.
The episode follows the record on both claims: the Orange Street fire that killed eleven people eight of them children by the National Library's photograph record, the Operation Werewolf briefcase, and Pearnel Charles's detention in Up Park Camp, later house arrest, later cleared. It covers the CIA's secret memo judging the emergency enforced in a blatantly political manner, the shooting of Mike Henry at a motorcade where nine people were hit, the December 15 election the governing party won with forty-seven of sixty seats, and the emergency that outlasted the vote by six months. Henry's own claim, Seaga's claims and the memo's judgments are each labelled as whose they are.Walter Rodney, Guyana 1980: The U.S. Embassy Cables From His Last Year
Walter Rodney - historian, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and leader of Guyana's Working People's Alliance - asked the U.S. embassy in December 1979 to help his family get residence in case he was …
Show notes
Walter Rodney - historian, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and leader of Guyana's Working People's Alliance - asked the U.S. embassy in December 1979 to help his family get residence in case he was killed. Six months later he was dead. This is his last year as the declassified embassy cables recorded it.
The episode follows the twenty documents: Rodney's account of a government ruling by fear, greed and violence, the cable noting the Alliance's printed statement never actually accused the CIA, the American refusal to send a forensic pathologist because the accusation existed, and the ambassador's judgment that the case against the government was strong although admittedly circumstantial. It carries Donald Rodney's account of the walkie-talkie and Gregory Smith, the 2016 Commission of Inquiry finding of a state-organised assassination with the prime minister's knowledge - a commission's finding, not a criminal verdict - the Granger government calling the report badly flawed, the 2021 quashing of Donald Rodney's conviction, and the fact that no criminal court has ever found anyone responsible.Guadeloupe, 1967: The Pointe-à-Pitre Strike, the CRS Shooting and the Paris Trial
On the twenty-sixth of May, nineteen sixty-seven, a sports teacher named Solange Yvon Coudrieu goes into Pointe-à-Pitre to buy a Mother's Day gift. By his own account, police shoot him without warning. A …
Show notes
On the twenty-sixth of May, nineteen sixty-seven, a sports teacher named Solange Yvon Coudrieu goes into Pointe-à-Pitre to buy a Mother's Day gift. By his own account, police shoot him without warning. A dum-dum bullet blows apart his right leg. He is one of the passers-by the researcher Grace Carrington records as targeted that day.Jamaica, 1960: Claudius Henry, the Treason Felony Trial and the Ambush in the Red Hills
A jury convicted Claudius Henry of treason felony after sixty-eight minutes. A judge said he called himself an appointed prophet of God. A witness testified that he boasted of machine guns. His defence said the …
Show notes
A jury convicted Claudius Henry of treason felony after sixty-eight minutes. A judge said he called himself an appointed prophet of God. A witness testified that he boasted of machine guns. His defence said the weapons were for fishing and worship. His son was convicted of murder and hanged. This is the story of Claudius Henry, the preacher Jamaica put on trial.Nassau, 1942: The Burma Road Riot, Bay Street and the Wage Gap at Oakes Field
On Sunday, the thirty-first of May, nineteen forty-two, a police captain drew his revolver on Bahamian labourers at Oakes Field, Nassau. They were building an air base. They earned four shillings a day …
Show notes
On Sunday, the thirty-first of May, nineteen forty-two, a police captain drew his revolver on Bahamian labourers at Oakes Field, Nassau. They were building an air base. They earned four shillings a day. Americans on the same jobs earned as much as four times more.Cuba, 1839: The Amistad Mutiny, the Connecticut Trials and the Supreme Court Ruling That Freed Thirty-Five
On the twenty-sixth of June, eighteen thirty-nine, a Spanish official in Havana signed a pass for forty-nine people. It gave each of them a Spanish name, written in Havana for the voyage. It called them …
Show notes
On the twenty-sixth of June, eighteen thirty-nine, a Spanish official in Havana signed a pass for forty-nine people. It gave each of them a Spanish name, written in Havana for the voyage. It called them ladinos, people long settled in Cuba. They had just been carried across the ocean from Africa.Guyana, 1948: The Enmore Shooting, the Venn Commission and the Strike Behind It
Before dawn on the sixteenth of June, nineteen forty-eight, Lance Corporal James and six policemen left Georgetown for the Enmore sugar estate. Each man carried a rifle and six rounds. By four in the morning …
Show notes
Before dawn on the sixteenth of June, nineteen forty-eight, Lance Corporal James and six policemen left Georgetown for the Enmore sugar estate. Each man carried a rifle and six rounds. By four in the morning they had reported to the estate management.Jamaica, 1934: Leonard Howell, the Sedition Trial and the Raid on Pinnacle
A chief justice called him a fraud. A labour leader asked the government to jail him again. A court convicted him of assault in nineteen forty-one. Police raided his village in nineteen forty-one and again in …
Show notes
A chief justice called him a fraud. A labour leader asked the government to jail him again. A court convicted him of assault in nineteen forty-one. Police raided his village in nineteen forty-one and again in nineteen fifty-four. This is the story of Leonard Howell, the man many call the first Rasta.Notting Hill, 1970: The Mangrove Raids, the Old Bailey Trial and the Judge Who Named Racial Hatred
On the ninth of August, nineteen seventy, a Special Branch detective named Colin Lynch was ordered to photograph a march in Notting Hill. About one hundred and fifty people walked. Seven hundred police walked …
Show notes
On the ninth of August, nineteen seventy, a Special Branch detective named Colin Lynch was ordered to photograph a march in Notting Hill. About one hundred and fifty people walked. Seven hundred police walked beside them. Nineteen people were arrested.Curaçao, 1969: Trinta di Mei, the Burning of Willemstad and the Government That Fell
At eleven o'clock on the night of the twenty-ninth of May, nineteen sixty-nine, about one hundred people gathered at Post Five. It was a gate of the Shell refinery on Curaçao. By morning, four thousand to five …
Show notes
At eleven o'clock on the night of the twenty-ninth of May, nineteen sixty-nine, about one hundred people gathered at Post Five. It was a gate of the Shell refinery on Curaçao. By morning, four thousand to five thousand workers stood at the same gate. How did a pay dispute at one contractor end, within a week, with an island government resigning? Shell had opened its refinery on Curaçao in nineteen eighteen. In nineteen fifty-two it employed about eleven thousand people.…Guyana, 2009: Roger Khan, the Fifteen-Year Sentence and the Killings Never Charged
Alleged: a cocaine organisation run from Georgetown, Guyana. Alleged: enforcers who carried out murders on his orders. Alleged: he ordered a talk show host killed. Denied: every killing. He was never charged …
Show notes
Alleged: a cocaine organisation run from Georgetown, Guyana. Alleged: enforcers who carried out murders on his orders. Alleged: he ordered a talk show host killed. Denied: every killing. He was never charged with one. Proven: cocaine, witness tampering and a gun. Sentence: fifteen years. This is the story of Roger Khan, and the fifteen years he got. Why did the government settle for fifteen?St. Croix, 1878: Queen Mary, the Fireburn and the Trials That Followed
On the first of October, eighteen seventy-eight, the streets of Frederiksted, on St. Croix, filled with people. It was Contract Day, a festive one. Then police moved to break up the crowd, and a laborer named …
Show notes
On the first of October, eighteen seventy-eight, the streets of Frederiksted, on St. Croix, filled with people. It was Contract Day, a festive one. Then police moved to break up the crowd, and a laborer named Henry Trotman was hurt and carried to the hospital. A rumor went through the crowd that he had been killed. Who answered for what the island did next, and who never did? Contract Day existed because of a law. Enslaved people on St. Croix were freed on the third of…Cuba, 1912: Evaristo Estenoz, the Morúa Law and the Killing of the Partido Independiente de Color
On the eighteenth of May, nineteen twelve, a speaker stood in a square in Santiago de Cuba and gave the government twenty-four hours. Repeal the law that had outlawed his party, or much blood would run. The law …
Show notes
On the eighteenth of May, nineteen twelve, a speaker stood in a square in Santiago de Cuba and gave the government twenty-four hours. Repeal the law that had outlawed his party, or much blood would run. The law stayed. Two days later armed men rose across eastern Cuba. How did one paragraph added to an election law end in a forest in Oriente, with soldiers firing into men who carried machetes? The party was the Partido Independiente de Color, the Independent Party of…Kelso Cochrane, 1959: The Stabbing on Southam Street and the Police File That Stayed Shut for Sixty-Five Years
At half past ten on a night in May, a carpenter with his arm in plaster left the room he shared with his fiancée. His thumb was broken, and the pain would not let him sleep. He was walking to Paddington General …
Show notes
At half past ten on a night in May, a carpenter with his arm in plaster left the room he shared with his fiancée. His thumb was broken, and the pain would not let him sleep. He was walking to Paddington General Hospital for painkillers.Taranto, December 1918: The Caribbean Sergeants, the Pay Gap and the Court-Martial
On the sixth of December, nineteen eighteen, a lieutenant colonel at Taranto, Italy, ordered Caribbean soldiers to clean latrines used by Italian labourers. The war had been over for twenty-five days. The men …
Show notes
On the sixth of December, nineteen eighteen, a lieutenant colonel at Taranto, Italy, ordered Caribbean soldiers to clean latrines used by Italian labourers. The war had been over for twenty-five days. The men of the Ninth Battalion said no. On that same day, someone had slashed the colonel's tent with knives and bayonets.Bermuda, 1972: The Five Killings, Two Hangings and Three Nights of Fire
On the ninth of September, nineteen seventy-two, Bermuda's police commissioner stood on his back porch, changing a broken light bulb. Someone fired through the kitchen window. George Duckett was more than six …
Show notes
On the ninth of September, nineteen seventy-two, Bermuda's police commissioner stood on his back porch, changing a broken light bulb. Someone fired through the kitchen window. George Duckett was more than six foot four. He was pronounced dead on arrival at King Edward Memorial Hospital. His seventeen-year-old daughter was hit in the chest, and she lived.
These are the latest 40 of 951 episodes. You’ll find older episodes in the podcast’s feed.
Similar podcasts
More History podcasts
Is this your podcast?
Confirm it with an entry in your feed: you get a code here, add it as podcast:txt to the channel of your feed, and we check it. Your podcast is then shown as “verified” on SoundNode.