Unfinished: Deep South
Unfinished: Deep South is a podcast that investigates the unsolved murder of Isadore Banks, one of the wealthiest African-Americans on the Arkansas Delta. The 10-episode podcast was released in June 2020 by Market Road Films and Stitcher Radio. In 2021 it was nominated for a Peabody Award.  

Banks was murdered in 1954, just three weeks after the Supreme Court ruling that overturned segregation. Creators of the podcast, journalist Neil Shea and documentary filmmaker Taylor Hom normally cover international stories but decided to focus on the U.S. for their next project. Hom became aware of Isadore Banks after reading about the U.S. Justice Department’s Cold Case Initiative of 2006. This was a joint effort between The Civil Rights Division, United States Attorneys’ Offices and the FBI to focus their resources on the investigations of more than 100 pending pre-1979 murders. After some initial interviews with members of the Banks family, Shea and Hom decided the story of Isadore Banks was more than just an unsolved murder.

Season 1 (2020)

People involved 

Isadore Banks

 Grandparents:  Elias Banks, a white land-owner living in Rome Georgia, and an African American woman named Nancy Banks, who was formerly enslaved. They had a son, named John who was Isadore’s father. Elias Banks died in 1878.
 Parents: John Banks and Annie Butler. Annie was African American and believed to be part Native American (Cherokee). Isadore was born to John and Annie in Georgia in 1895, he was the third of seven children. Isadore’s mother died at a young age.

Banks Family 

 Around 1917 Isadore married Alice Biggs. He is 23 and a self-employed farmer. After serving in WWI, he returned home in 1919.
 Muriel Banks: oldest daughter of Isadore and his wife Alice Banks.
 Dorothy Williams: daughter of Isadore Banks. Her mother was a sharecropper and one of Isadore’s mistresses. She and her mother lived on land Isadore rented from the Italian widow. 
 Marcelina “Lina” Williams: daughter of Dorothy, granddaughter of Isadore.
 Jim Banks: son of Isadore and Willie Lee Banks. It is unclear if Isadore was married legally to Willie.
 Norman Banks: Isadore’s brother and business partner.

Anderson Family

 Andrew Lee Anderson: The oldest of 12 children whose family lived outside of Marion. Andrew made money by mowing lawns and doing odd jobs in Marion. While in Marion on a job, Andrew was believed to have attacked a young girl. He was hunted down by a posse, shot multiple times and died. He was 16 at the time. No investigation was pursued. 
 Roy Anderson: Andrew’s father 
 Geraldine and Earline: Andrew’s sisters

Townspeople

 Willie and Ida Gammon: Cousins and locals of Marion heard at the beginning of the podcast to take the creators on a tour of Isadore’s, now abandoned, Cotton Gin. 
 Cecil Goodwin: Sheriff of Crittenden County
 Maggie Sue Goodwin: Wife of Sheriff Goodwin
 James Wilburn, Sr: Business man and close friend of Isadore’s who lived down the street. He ran several businesses including the Black Cat Hotel frequented by musicians who performed on the Chitlin Circuit.
 James Wilburn, Jr. Son of James Sr.  Recounts how his father’s businesses and homes were terrorized and burned down.
 Flora Belle Wilburn: Daughter of James, Sr and younger sister of James, Jr.
 Elijah Maxwell: Neighbor of the Wilburn family.
 Mr. Fleming: Neighbor of the Wilburn family.
 Ben McGee: Former Arkansas State Representative.
 Tommy Gamon: Son of a family that was being threatened by Night Riders. Isadore taught him how to shoot in case the threat was followed through.
 Professor Story Matkin-Rawn: Teaches history at the University of Central Arkansas.
 Ginny Marts: Grew up in Marion and describes the different versions of stories she had heard about Isadore Banks murder.  
 Roselyn O’Neill: A local woman thought of as the “town historian”.
 Sam Burns: A painter who is somehow linked to Isadore’s murder.
 “Julie” : Stepdaughter of Sam Burns and wife of “Mike”. Julie holds a key to what happened to Andrew Anderson.
 Vera Baretti Simonetta: She recounts her father’s reaction to Isadore’s death.
 Annie Will Johnson: Daughter of a family Isadore was friendly with, He gave her a ride home from the bus stop and visited with her family. That was the last time anyone saw Isadore.

Other Individuals

 Margaret Burnham: Law professor at Northeastern University in Boston. Oversees The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project.
 Toby Moore: Asst. Professor of Geography at the University of Iowa. Wrote the article Race and the County Sheriff in the American South.
 Carmen White: Member of the BlackProGen, a group specializing in tracing African American history.
 Ashraf Rashdi: Professor of African-American studies at Wesleyan University provides a history of lynching.
 Rachel Walton: Professor of Criminal Justice at Utah State.
 Shabaka Afri’ka: President of the Crittenden County, Arkansas NAACP
 Rev. Edward Hampton: He was 19 when Isadore was killed and recounts his memory of the event.
 Jay Driscoll: Historian who discovered the Vernon McDaniel report on Isadore Banks
 Vernon McDaniel: A field agent for the NAACP and author of the Isadore Banks Case of Desegregation in Crittenden County Ark, Dec 6th 1954.
 Thurgood Marshall: during the time of Isadore’s death he was the executive director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and most likely reviewed Vernon McDaniel’s report.
 Bryan Stevenson: Attorney, social justice activist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative

Historical Moments

 Reconstruction
 Age of Lynching, after WWI
 Red Summer 
 Great Migration (African American).
 Jim Crow Era
 World War I, military history of African Americans
 The Great Depression
 George Floyd, his death is viewed as another example of the history of police brutality and sparked the phrase “Remember George Floyd”.

Release and Reception 

Unfinished: Deep South was released on June 9, 2020, two weeks after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was noted as relevant by the media. Saidiya Hartman, the author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments called the podcast a "a tremendously smart and compelling series that investigates the lynching of Isadore Banks, a wealthy black farmer in Arkansas." She described the podcast as "timely" and "required listening." Reverend Jesse Jackson said of the podcast, "Truth crushed to earth will rise again. We are in a deep season of terror and darkness. White supremacy and the distorted belief in Black inferiority was once a formula for getting along.  Now, we have changed our minds for ourselves and for our destiny. We began marching, protesting. We have the power to change the whole world. Unfinished: Deep South podcast is a timely reminder of how the dark past still has repercussions today."

In 2021, the podcast was nominated for a Peabody Award. It was also ranked as the #35 Best Podcast of 2020 by The Atlantic, and it was cited as #23 in the PopSugar article, "These 25 True-Crime Podcasts From 2020 Will Have You Constantly Looking Behind You" 

Several news agencies published articles about the podcast including New York Public Radio, "Investigating a 1954 Lynching," Playbill, "Unfinished: Deep South, New Podcast From Lynn Nottage and More About Lynching of Isadore Banks, Premieres June 29," The Financial Times, "Unfinished: Deep South is a shocking podcast about an unsolved murder," The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, "Podcasting: A legacy vanished," and The St. Louis American, "'A Very American Crime' Podcast series features Arkansas lynching tragedy with St. Louis connection."

Credits 
A production of Market Road Films and Stitcher Radio  

Created and reported by Taylor Hom and Neil Shea

Editors: Peter Clowney, Gianna Palmer, and Tracey Samuelson

Executive Producers: Lynn Nottage, Tony Gerber, Peter Clowney, and Chris Bannon

Senior Producers: Laura Colleluori and Stephanie Kariuki 

Producing & Editing by: Lisa John Rogers and Joy Okon Sunday  

Mixing Engineer: Casey Holford

Music: Hubby Jenkins 

Original Theme Music and Scoring: Casey Holford, with Ryan Thornton and Dan Costello

Additional Research: Lisa John Rogers, Jay W. Driskell, Carmen White, Kriska Desir, and Babette Thomas  

Fact Checkers: Soraya Shockley and Michelle Harris

Interns: Brooke LaMantia and Lukas Noguchi  and Shahruz Ghaemi.

References 

2020 podcast debuts
2020 podcast endings
Audio podcasts
American podcasts
Crime podcasts
History podcasts
1954 in Arkansas
African-American history of Arkansas