10 episodes
You Didn't See Nothin USG AUDIO PODCASTS
-
- True Crime
-
-
4.9 • 557 Ratings
-
Part investigation and part memoir, “You Didn't See Nothin” follows Yohance Lacour as he revisits the story that introduced him to the world of investigative journalism, and examines how its ripple effects have shaped his life over the past quarter-century.
In 1997, Lenard Clark was beaten into a coma by a gang of older white teens simply for being Black in a white neighborhood. One of Lenard’s attackers was from a powerful Chicago family. The media quickly turned towards stories of reconciliation and racial healing, with cooperation by Black leaders and the attacker’s family.
Yohance wasn’t having any of it.
At the time of the attack, he was in his early 20s, writing plays, selling weed, and living at his dad’s house on the South Side of Chicago. Unable to stand by silently, he began working with a neighborhood newspaper to investigate the vicious hate crime. Reporting on the incident led him to grow increasingly disillusioned with journalism.
From USG Audio and the Invisible Institute – creators of the 2020 Pulitzer Finalist podcast “Somebody” – “You Didn't See Nothin” finds Yohance back in Chicago after a 10-year prison sentence, tracking down key players to examine how this story connects to our present moment.
-
Young Black Male
EPISODE 1: When a 13-year-old Black boy is attacked in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, Yohance rallies his crew to avenge the beating.
Credits
Host: Yohance Lacour
Producers: Bill Healy, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Erisa Apantaku, Sarah Geis
Sound Design/Mixing and Music Supervision: Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski at the Audio Non-Visual Company
Original Music: Taka Yasuzawa
Executive Producers: Alison Flowers and Jamie Kalven (Invisible Institute) and Josh Bloch (USG Audio)
Production Support: Jennifer Sears and Josh Laolagi
Fact-checking: Angely Mercado
Key Art: Kenneth L. Copeland, Jr.
Special Thanks: The Sebring Crew (Earl, Peewee, Willie, Ro, Jamaz) Kanesha Broadwater, Michael Clark
Archival audio in this episode include (in order of appearance): C-SPAN, CBS Evening News, NPR/All Things Considered, MSNBC/NBC News, WBEZ, Dateline, CNN, WTTW, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, NBC Evening News, NPR/Weekend Edition, YouTube, CBS Chicago, The Today Show, WMAQ, and Conus.
For more information, go to usgaudio.com.
To learn about the Invisible Institute’s human rights reporting, visit invisible.institute.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. -
Holler If Ya Hear Me
EPISODE 2: Yohance begins to investigate the beating for a neighborhood newspaper, when his reporting gets some unwanted attention.
Credits
Host: Yohance Lacour
Producers: Bill Healy, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Erisa Apantaku, Sarah Geis
Sound Design/Mixing and Music Supervision: Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski at the Audio Non-Visual Company
Original Music: Taka Yasuzawa
Executive Producers: Alison Flowers and Jamie Kalven (Invisible Institute) and Josh Bloch (USG Audio)
Production Support: Jennifer Sears and Josh Laolagi
Fact-checking: Angely Mercado
Key Art: Kenneth L. Copeland, Jr.
Special Thanks: Stacy Nzingha Hill
Archival audio in this episode include (in order of appearance): CBS Evening News; NPR/All Things Considered; YouTube; CNN; WMAQ; Sounds of Blackness; Twista, Faith Evans and Capitol Records; Mary J. Blige and MCA Records; The President’s Weekly Radio Address, WTTW, Dateline, NBC News, Fox Chicago, and Universal Pictures.
For more information, go to usgaudio.com.
To learn about the Invisible Institute’s human rights reporting, visit invisible.institute.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. -
Heartz of Men
EPISODE 3: News stories about the beating zero in on reconciliation and racial healing, as the attacker’s parents meet with prominent Black leaders.
Credits
Host: Yohance Lacour
Producers: Bill Healy, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Erisa Apantaku, Sarah Geis
Sound Design/Mixing and Music Supervision: Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski at the Audio Non-Visual Company
Original Music: Taka Yasuzawa
Executive Producers: Alison Flowers and Jamie Kalven (Invisible Institute) and Josh Bloch (USG Audio)
Production Support: Jennifer Sears and Josh Laolagi
Fact-checking: Angely Mercado
Key Art: Kenneth L. Copeland, Jr.
Special Thanks: Mindy Pugh and The Progressive Community Church Archives at the Illinois Institute of Technology
Archival audio in this episode include (in order of appearance): The President’s Weekly Radio Address, CNN, Fox News, Fox Chicago, WMAQ, CBS Chicago, Getty Images NBC News Archives, Boys II Men UMG Recording Inc. and Motown Record Company, and NPR/All Things Considered.
For more information, go to usgaudio.com.
To learn about the Invisible Institute’s human rights reporting, visit invisible.institute.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. -
Point the Finga
EPISODE 4: As the trial approaches, a key witness goes missing and another is murdered.
Credits
Host: Yohance Lacour
Producers: Bill Healy, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Erisa Apantaku, Sarah Geis
Sound Design/Mixing and Music Supervision: Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski at the Audio Non-Visual Company
Original Music: Taka Yasuzawa
Executive Producers: Alison Flowers and Jamie Kalven (Invisible Institute) and Josh Bloch (USG Audio)
Production Support: Jennifer Sears and Josh Laolagi
Fact-checking: Angely Mercado
Key Art: Kenneth L. Copeland, Jr.
Special Thanks: James Cutler, Steve Bogira, Elizabeth Smith and the Cook Clerk of the Circuit Court
Archival audio in this episode include (in order of appearance): WMAQ, Fox Chicago, Dateline, and WBEZ.
For more information, go to usgaudio.com.
To learn about the Invisible Institute’s human rights reporting, visit invisible.institute.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. -
Who Do You Believe In?
EPISODE 5: The Black community becomes deeply divided over some of its leaders supporting the family of the attacker.
Credits
Host: Yohance Lacour
Producers: Bill Healy, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Erisa Apantaku, Sarah Geis
Sound Design/Mixing and Music Supervision: Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski at the Audio Non-Visual Company
Original Music: Taka Yasuzawa
Executive Producers: Alison Flowers and Jamie Kalven (Invisible Institute) and Josh Bloch (USG Audio)
Production Support: Jennifer Sears and Josh Laolagi
Fact-checking: Angely Mercado
Key Art: Kenneth L. Copeland, Jr.
Special Thanks: Brother Randy Evans, Steve Bogira, the family of Joe Lattimore, Mindy Pugh and The Progressive Community Church Archives at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Bob Berlin
Archival audio in this episode include (in order of appearance): CNN, Dateline, WBEZ, NPR, WMAQ, C-SPAN, and WTTW.
For more information, go to usgaudio.com.
To learn about the Invisible Institute’s human rights reporting, visit invisible.institute.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. -
Never Had a Friend Like Me
EPISODE 6: Yohance speaks to the Black minister about the notion that the attacker and his victim have become friends.
Credits
Host: Yohance Lacour
Producers: Bill Healy, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Erisa Apantaku, Sarah Geis
Sound Design/Mixing and Music Supervision: Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski at the Audio Non-Visual Company
Original Music: Taka Yasuzawa
Executive Producers: Alison Flowers and Jamie Kalven (Invisible Institute) and Josh Bloch (USG Audio)
Production Support: Jennifer Sears and Josh Laolagi
Fact-checking: Angely Mercado
Key Art: Kenneth L. Copeland, Jr.
Special Thanks: Mindy Pugh and The Progressive Community Church Archives at the Illinois Institute of Technology
Archival audio in this episode include (in order of appearance): CNN, NPR/All Things Considered, WMAQ, Paramount Pictures, and WBEZ.
For more information, go to usgaudio.com.
To learn about the Invisible Institute’s human rights reporting, visit invisible.institute.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Customer Reviews
You Didn't See Nothing
Best podcast I've listened to in a long time. Best narrator. Super thoughtful construction, weaving together personal and sociopolitical questions. My favorite kind of thing. HBD Yo!
Powerful storytelling, important vice
I'm so impressed by the craft that went into this series. Yohance, yes, but the entire team of professionals that helped Yohance translate his reporting and distinct voice into audio storytelling. It's a tremendous accomplishment, and an important story.
You Didn’t See Nothin
The moment Yohance Lacour utters the first word, the listener is entranced. An everyman with scalpel-like insight, LaCour tells a passionate story minus the sentimentality that retrospect often brings. The backwash and “ish” is all too familiar. An innocent Black American child’s crossing a few blocks into "enemy territory", is epic. Children presumptively enter and exit Bridgeport all the time. The targeting and beating Blacks is systemic, and indisputable. There’s a mind-bending list of ways a story and its logic story is contested. Disputed facts are recalled, reconstructed and fed on the other end. Without a canned conclusion, the story is defiant, problematic and sometimes contradictory – wait the assailant and the victim’s mothers allegedly did what? Allegiances hop sides as swiftly as some individuals all too conveniently disappear.
With the skill of a surgeon, Lacour excavates stories surrounding the savage attack on Lenard Clark. In both concept and lived experience, Lacour provides the panopticon the tragedy so rightly deserves, at precisely the time we need to hear it, and in the voices needed to tell it. You Didn’t See Nothin, is more than a clever play on words. The podcast faces the attack and its aftermath compelling listeners to dig in more, and think a little deeper. Lacour and colleagues look back unabashed. It is a “missing middle” narrative, a trope in an American saga of violence and ultimate redemption. But whose?
And that’s part of its brilliance. Lacour’s voice carries the weight and gravitas of the story. It also conveys discovery and truth telling, both achingly personal and fully universal. How can you tell such a story without letting irony and humor seep through? Lacour’s aplomb is evident. Investigative reporter. Conversant. Participant. Subject-observer. However, he’s positioned, Lacour assuredly navigates a complex and detailed narrative. I binged listened.
Tsehaye G. Hébert