Colson Whitehead’s latest novel is based on a real juvenile detention reformatory in 1960s Florida. He joins us to talk about his story of two boys, bound by the trauma around them as they swing between hope and cynicism.
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Beyond Borders: What Makes A Nation
Thomas Meaney, a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany, joins us to talk about the history of military intervention, citizen uprisings, and the ideas around citizenship that define belonging in our world.
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What Happened The Last Time We Tried To Cut Off Immigation
Jia Lynn Yang, deputy national editor at the New York Times, joins us to talk about the lawmakers at the forefront of the push to change the law and the immigrants at the center of the fight for equality.
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How Cars Changed Black Life In America
Gretchen Sorin, director and distinguished professor of the Cooperstown Graduate Program of the State University of New York, joins us to talk about the freedoms and challenges of car ownership for African-Americans.
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The Politics Of White Anger
Davin Phoenix, associate professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine, talks to us about who gets to be angry and whose anger actually affects change.
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The Link Between Policing And Segregation
Monica Bell of the Yale School of Law joins us to argue that “segregation rots community life at the root” and that police reform is empty until we examine how people live in proximity to one another.
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Meet The Formerly Enslaved Woman Who Secured Reparations
Rice University historian W. Caleb McDaniel joins us to tell the story of how Henrietta Wood ultimately sued and won the largest amount given in restitution for slavery.
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An Urbanite’s Journey To Understand The Heartland
Marie Mutsuki Mockett, a fiction and nonfiction teacher at Rainier Writing Workshop and visiting writer in the MFA program at Saint Mary’s College, joins us to talk about her exploration of her family’s heritage in rural Nebraska to understand a more conservative way of life
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How Protests Shape Public Opinion
Omar Wasow, assistant professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton and co-founder of BlackPlanet.com, joins us to talk about protest tactics that work and why.
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The Evolution Of Protests
Peniel E. Joseph, founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin, joins us to talk about how these protests resemble demonstrations of the Civil Rights era – and how social media and video footage have changed how people protest.
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Poor And Pregnant In Texas? You Might Want To Move
ProPublica reporter Nina Martin joins us to talk about the critical links between maternal mortality and Medicaid and why limited to no access means pregnant and new mothers are dying at an alarming rate.
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Meet The Woman Pilots of WWII
Katherine Sharp Landdeck, associate professor of history at Texas Woman’s University and a Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, joins us to talk about these trailblazing female aviators.
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