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The 50 Questions Interviews At the inception of the Patchwork project, which began in June 2009, Foster Dickson envisioned using a sociologically styled questionnaire format for the podcast interviews. He planned on asking all participants the same fifty questions about life in Alabama in modern times. The questions ranged from whimsical ones about the best restaurants in the state to deep and difficult ones about race relations and politics. Initially, nineteen people agreed to be interviewed for the podcast series, and each of them came from a type of work that gave them a grassroots view of the state’s real issues and problems. Unfortunately, confirmed interviewees began to drop like flies as the summer faded into fall. Some people overtly withdrew their willingness to participate, while others ceased all communication when the time came to be interviewed. By the time the fall was about to turn into winter, more than half of the confirmed interview subjects had cancelled or withdrawn. In early December, as the project was six months down with six months to go, Dickson decided to abandon the fifty-question format in favor of a looser, more conversational interview format. During the six months from beginning of June through the end of November, six people actually participated in being interviewed using this format, while only four of them gave the OK for their interview to be published. Their answers were cutting and honest. Below are the links to those four fifty-questions interviews that explore the toughest questions about Alabama.
Interview 04 -- Barbara Evans, Organizer Interview 03 -- Ravi Howard, Author Interview 02 -- Charlie Kendall, Outreach Minister Interview 01 -- Rebecca Jackson, Community Organizer
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