Unholy Histories: The Humanist Heritage Podcast from Humanists UK

Radical empathy – the humanist ideas that shaped civil rights across the Atlantic

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0100

In February 1965, James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. faced each other across a packed Cambridge Union, debating whether "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro." Baldwin won the vote by a landslide. But that famous moment was one flashpoint in a much wider struggle. Across the United States and here in Britain, activists, writers and thinkers were challenging injustice, confronting systems of power, and asking fundamental questions about equality, dignity and how we ought to live. Many looked to humanist ideas of reason, shared humanity, and a vision of ethics grounded in human experience.

This episode traces the humanist threads that ran through the civil rights movements on both sides of the Atlantic, from Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry in the United States to the Windrush generation, the 1965 Race Relations Act, and the Black British radical tradition of C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones and Darcus Howe.

Guests:

Dr Nicholas Buccola, Dr Jules K. Whitehill Professor of Humanism and Ethics at Claremont McKenna College, and author of The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America (Princeton, 2019). nicholasbuccola.com

Dr Angelina Osborne, British historian, researcher and heritage consultant, and co-author with Patrick Vernon of 100 Great Black Britons (Robinson, 2020). 100greatblackbritons.co.uk

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Join Humanists UK: humanists.uk/join

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Unholy Histories is produced by Humanise Live a production agency creating values-led podcast content. Start podcasting today at humanise.live

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

Podcast transcripts are AI-generated and may contain errors or omissions. They are provided to make our content more accessible, but should not be considered a fully accurate record of the conversation.

Atheism Before Christianity – How Ancient Greek Philosophy Shaped Modern Humanism

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0100

Long before the Enlightenment, ancient thinkers were already questioning the gods. In the Greek world of the seventh to fifth centuries BCE, medicine, weather and the natural world began to be explained without divine intervention. Philosophers asked whether the gods existed at all, whether ethics could rest on human reason alone, and whether a meaningful life required belief in an afterlife. The answers they gave — Epicurus on the consolations of mortality, Protagoras on the limits of knowledge, Lucretius on a universe of atoms — would echo through European thought for the next two thousand years, surface again in the Reformation and the Enlightenment, and shape the British humanist movement in ways that are often forgotten. This episode goes back to the ancient world to recover the first humanists, and traces how their ideas reached the radicals, ethical societies, and classical scholars who built modern British humanism.

Guests:

Professor Edith Hall, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University, Fellow of the British Academy, and author of A People's History of Classics: Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain and Ireland, 1689–1939 and Aristotle's Way. /edithhall.co.uk

Professor Tim Whitmarsh, Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, and author of Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World. classics.cam.ac.uk

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

Britain's Most Secular Parliament and the Battle That Built It

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0100

In 1880 a newly elected MP walked into the House of Commons and refused to swear an oath to God. Parliament refused to let him take his seat. He was re-elected four times. The standoff lasted six years. Charles Bradlaugh's fight ended with the Oaths Act of 1888, a turning point in the recognition of non-religious conscience in British public life. This episode traces that struggle from Bradlaugh's Northampton victory to the 2024 General Election, the most secular Westminster has ever returned, and asks how much religious privilege still shapes power in Britain today.

Guests:

Professor David Nash, historian of secularism and freethought and co-author of The Humanist Movement in Modern Britain: A History of Ethicists, Rationalists and Humanists (Bloomsbury, 2023). jesus.ox.ac.uk

Lizzi Collinge, MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. lizzicollinge.com

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights with Bill Cooke & Francesca Klug

Wed, 27 May 2026 07:00:00 +0100

In the aftermath of two world wars, a new vision for humanity began to take shape, one grounded in shared dignity, freedom, and cooperation across borders. At the heart of that vision were humanist thinkers, from H.G. Wells, whose Rights of Man helped inspire the movement, to Julian Huxley, the first Director-General of UNESCO. This episode traces the ideas that shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asks why it still matters, and considers what challenges lie ahead for the universal ideals it enshrines.

Guests:

Bill Cooke, historian, senior editor of Free Inquiry, and author of A Wealth of Insights: Humanist Thought Since the Enlightenment and H.G. Wells and the Twenty-First Century. secularhumanism.org/authors/cooke-bill/
Francesca Klug, human rights scholar and writer, visiting professor at the LSE Centre for the Study of Human Rights, and author of Values for a Godless Age and A Magna Carta for All Humanity. lse.ac.uk/people/francesca-klug

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

Born of Mary - LGBT Rights & Humanism In Britain with Lesley Hall and Peter Parker

Wed, 20 May 2026 07:00:00 +0100

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Throughout modern British history, the movements for sexual freedom and freedom of belief have often converged, challenging moral orthodoxy and religious authority in the name of human dignity. This episode traces how humanism and LGBT activism have evolved side by side, and what that shared legacy means today.

Guests:

Lesley Hall, historian and retired archivist, specialising in sexuality and gender in 19th and 20th century Britain. Author of Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880.
Peter Parker, cultural historian and biographer, author of Some Men in London: Queer Life, (Vol 1) 1945–1959 & (Vol 2) 1960-1967

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

Moral education without religion with Lois Lee & Susannah Wright

Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:00 +0100

Education has always been central to humanist thought, from the founding of the Moral Instruction League in 1897 to Margaret Knight's scandalous 1955 BBC broadcasts on raising children without religion. This episode traces the long humanist tradition of moral and civic education in Britain, and asks how children form their identities and worldviews in an increasingly non-religious society.

Guests:

Dr Lois Lee, senior lecturer in secular studies at the University of Kent, whose research examines contemporary forms of non-religiosity and the formation of humanism in childhood. explainingatheism.org
Dr Susannah Wright, associate professor in the history of education at Oxford Brookes, whose work focuses on secularism, war and peace in the history of British education. brookes.ac.uk

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

Atheism before the Enlightenment with Michael Hunter and Patrick McGhee

Wed, 06 May 2026 07:00:00 +0100

Many people assume humanism began with the Enlightenment. But sceptical, rational, human-centred ideas have a much longer history. This episode travels back to the centuries before the so-called Age of Reason to meet the freethinkers, doubters, and proto-humanists who challenged religious orthodoxy when doing so could mean prison, exile, or death, and asks what their courage tells us about the slow erosion of religious certainty.

Guests:

Professor Michael Hunter, Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, Fellow of the British Academy, and author of Atheists and Atheism Before the Enlightenment: The English and Scottish Experience. https://www.bbk.ac.uk/about-us/fellows/michael-hunter
Dr Patrick McGhee, Honorary Research Fellow at Durham University. https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/patrick-mcghee

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

Heroines of freethought with Annie Laurie Gaylor & Nan Sloane

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:00:00 +0100

Throughout history, women have been leading voices for reason, equality, and human progress, even if their stories have too often been overlooked. Taking its title from Sara Underwood's 1876 collection, this episode sheds light on some of the women who defied religious and social convention, and asks what their legacy means for humanism today.

Guests:

Nan Sloane, historian, trainer, and author of Uncontrollable Women: Radicals, Reformers and Revolutionaries. nansloane.com
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, co-host of Freethought Radio, and editor of Women Without Superstition. ffrf.org

For all references to people, places, and events in this episode and the full series, visit heritage.humanists.uk/podcast

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar

Introducing Unholy Histories: The Humanist Heritage Podcast from Humanists UK

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Unholy Histories is the new Humanist Heritage Podcast from Humanists UK and inspired by the research of the Humanist Heritage Project.

Join Andrew Copson and Madeleine Goodall as they uncover the rebels, reformers, and freethinkers who shaped a more open and compassionate Britain.

The first episodes go live very soon. Subscribe now via your preferred podcast app to be notified the moment new episodes are released.

Music: Small Things by Simon Folwar