Oklahoma City

“The story of Timothy McVeigh is the story of the alt-right, and we see now the flowering of that alt-right in Charlottesville and many other examples,” director/producer Barak Goodman says in this Peabody Conversation about “Oklahoma City.” The 2017 documentary tells the story of McVeigh and Terry Nichols’ April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a terrorist attack that killed 168 people and injured 675 more. “It’s very valuable to dig back to find out what the roots are in these monstrous acts because to understand our world you have to understand where these things come from,” Goodman explains. The film traces a single isolated attack as a progression from the 1992 and 1993 standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco, respectively. Peabody Awards honored “Oklahoma City” as “a painstaking work of history told not only to make sense of the motives behind the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history, but also to help viewers understand the reinvigorated white supremacist voice that finds a sympathetic platform today.”