StoryCorps

After serving time in the Air Force, Nathan Baxter, an African American man from Pennsylvania, ended up in the South in the 1960s. Baxter learned a lot of lessons during and after his service – one of which was how difficult it could be to be a black man in the South at that time. He stopped by mobile Storycorps booth in Oakland to share some never-told experiences with his descendants.

It takes all kinds of people to help support those with HIV. Friends and co-workers Adrienne Elias and Eric Sutter come from very different backgrounds, but they both feel passionate about their work at Shanti, a San Francisco non-profit dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with HIV and other life threatening illnesses.

Shortly after World War II in Eastern Europe, Slobodan Dan Paich was just a boy, and he says life felt void of color. But he remembers the moment light came back in – it was all thanks to a certain musical tale about a dark-haired beauty named Tosca. 

Olin Thomas is a retired army veteran. He says it wasn’t until after he joined the military that he realized he was gay. Despite his fears about coming out, he found support in unexpected places. Thomas sat down in the StoryCorps booth at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco with his friend, Hugo Salinas, to tell his story.

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This story originally aired on April 7, 2011.