Race, Identity & Culture

Writer and actress REBECCA HALL wrote and directed the new film “Passing,” adapted from the 1929 novel of the same name, set in the 1920’s. It’s about two light skinned African American women who run into each other after not having seen each other for 12 years.

As editor of the New York Times' 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones fought against the erasure of African American history. But there's also been a backlash by conservatives who have vowed to keep the 1619 Project out of classrooms — including threats that have been made against her personally.

In his new book, How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith visits eight places central to the history of slavery in America, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation and Louisiana's Angola prison, which was built on the site of a former plantation.

There is a 30-year gap in the life expectancies of Black and white Chicagoans depending on their ZIP code. Journalist Linda Villarosa says the disparity in life expectancies has its roots in government-sanctioned policies that systematically extracted wealth from Black neighborhoods — and eroded the health of generations of people. She writes about her family's own story in The New York Times Magazine article "Black Lives Are Shorter in Chicago. My Family's History Shows Why."

Erdrich's novel, The Night Watchman, is based on her grandfather's role in resisting a Congressional effort to withdraw federal recognition from her family's tribe. Originally broadcast March 4, 2020.

When he was 12, Gates made a bargain with Jesus in an attempt to save his mother's life. He talks about how that altered his own life, and his new book and PBS series, The Black Church.

Atlantic writer Clint Smith grew up surrounded by Confederate iconography, being told that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. He shares a poem from his forthcoming book, How the Word Is Passed.

In his book, The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Peniel Joseph braids together the lives of the two civil rights leaders. He says that King and Malcolm X had "convergent visions" for Black America — but their strategies for how to reach the goal was informed by their different upbringings.

The same ball culture Janet Mock saw in Paris is Burning would come up again in her career, decades later. After launching a career in journalism, writing two memoirs and becoming a trans activist, Mock made history as the first trans woman of color to write and direct an episode of TV when she joined the production of Ryan Murphy's series Pose.