Voodoo and West Africa's Spiritual Life, Part 3

By John Burnett

Published February 10, 2004 at 10:00 PM MST

In the final Radio Expeditions story on voodoo in West Africa, reporter John Burnett talks to defenders and critics of the religion. While voodoo is often condemned as superstition or worse, its practitioners say the good it can do for believers far outweighs the bad.

John Burnett

As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.

See stories by John Burnett