WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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In the late 60s, one man imagined creating a place that would radically undermine the societal values of his time—an alternative space that subverted color lines, gender norms, and war.
That man was Fred Rogers and that place was Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Our opening song is, of course, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” Composed by Fred Rogers and performed by the music director for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and live in-house jazz pianist for every show, Johnny Costa. All of our music this hour will come from the mind of Rogers and the hands of Costa.
Fred Rogers was a complex iconoclast: a television host who hated most television, a soft-spoken Presbyterian minister who purposefully addressed thorny topics others wouldn’t touch, a broadcaster who insisted on speaking as if to a single child watching in his living room.
Rogers’ style was subtle, but his politics radical: in 1968, the Vietnam war raging, he devoted his show’s first week being nationally broadcast to the conflict, telling children “war isn’t nice.”
What can we learn from Fred Rogers and his work?
How do we make use of his impact on the culture—and on many of our young lives—rather than simply beatifying him, and thus setting him on the pedestal of the improbable, the inimitable, the irrelevant?
We’ll start by looking at Rogers, the flawed human being, and the idiosyncratic personal, academic, and theological roots that catalyzed some of his most fundamental beliefs.
RELATED
The Fred Rogers Center
A Revealing Question About Mister Rogers by Michael Long
The Quietly Radical Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (The Atlantic)
The Gay ‘Ghetto Boy’ Who Bonded With Mister Rogers And Changed The Neighborhood
The Best Argument For Saving Public Media Was Made By Mr. Rogers In 1969
GUEST
Michael Long is an associate professor of Religious Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. He’s the author or editor of several books on civil rights, religion, and politics, including Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers, Beyond Home Plate: Jackie Robinson on Life after Baseball, and I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters.
MUSIC
by Fred Rogers and Johnny Costa
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”
“It’s You I Like”
“You Are Special”
“It’s Such a Good Feeling”
CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Edited by Rob Schoon
Special Assistance: Calin Neely
Executive Producer: Wes Martin
