Race, Identity & Culture

A.C. Thompson warns that white power groups in the U.S. increasingly view themselves as paramilitary organizations. His reporting is featured in a new FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigation.

Journalist Alex Wagner was 12 years old when a line cook in a diner asked her if she was adopted. Wagner was taken aback — her father's family came generations ago from Luxembourg, and her mother came to the U.S. from what was then Burma.

Historian Kathleen Belew's new book Bring The War Home is about how the white power movement expanded and consolidated when white supremacist and neo Nazi groups came together. They formed an openly anti-government agenda.

New York Times columnist Lindy West knows what it's like to encounter a barrage of Internet hate. West, who often writes about feminist issues and body positivity, was "doxxed" by Internet trolls — her home address and cell phone number were posted online.

In 1912, white mobs set fire to black churches and black-owned businesses. Author Patrick Phillips revisits the incident in his book, Blood at the Root. Originally broadcast Sept. 15, 2016.

Playwright Tarell McCraney and filmmaker Barry Jenkins drew on their childhood experiences in making Moonlight, which has been nominated for eight Academy Awards. Originally broadcast Oct. 19, 2016.

The late James Baldwin was one of the most influential African-American writers to emerge during the civil rights era. During the late 1950s and 1960s, he traveled through the South and addressed racial issues head on. Though Baldwin died in 1987 before that book could be written, the new Oscar-nominated documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, draws on his notes for the book, as well as from other of Baldwin's writings.

Journalist, novelist and playwright Thulani Davis traces her roots in My Confederate Kinfolk: a Twenty-First Century Freedwoman Discovers Her Roots. Among the revelations Davis uncovered was that her ancestors include a Scots-Irish clan of cotton planters as well as Africans from Sierra Leone.

Ta-Nehisi Coates grew up in the post-civil rights era, son of a publisher and former Black Panther; he's a contributing editor and blogger for The Atlantic magazine and author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, 2 Sons, and An Unlikely Road to Manhood.