African American issues

Author Linda Villarosa has been writing about the racial disparities in health outcomes for decades and recently covered the topic for the New York Times' 1619 Project. She says that while she used to think poverty was to blame for Black Americans' health problems, she's now convinced that bias in the health care system and the "weathering" affect of living in a racist society are taking a serious toll on African Americans.

Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa reconstruct the course of his life in His Name is George Floyd.

In Civil Rights Queen, author Tomiko Brown-Nagin profiles Motley, a Black woman who wrote the original complaint in Brown v. The Board of Education and was on Martin Luther King's legal team.

Imani Perry, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, was born in Birmingham, Ala., and has always considered it home, even though she moved north as a child. In her new book, South to America, she recounts her travels to the South — its cities, rural areas and historic sites — and reflects on the region's history of slavery and racism.

Activist Tarana Burke is the founder of the #MeToo Movement and has worked with Black and brown girls who are survivors of sexual violence. She originated the phrase and concept Me Too in 2006, as a way for victims to share their stories and connect with others. The Me Too hashtag went viral in 2017, in response to the Harvey Weinstein allegations of sexual assault.

In the 1960s, Moses led efforts to organize and register Black residents to vote in Mississippi and brought national attention to the state's entrenched white supremacy. Moses died Sunday at age 86.

An NBC News analysis finds at least 165 local and national groups are trying to disrupt or block lessons on race and gender. NBC reporter Tyler Kingkade explores who is waging this fight, and why.

Juneteenth celebrates the day slavery ended in Texas, June 19, 1865. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed studies the early American republic and the legacy of slavery.

Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.'s "Resistance" podcast explores different aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement. The podcast has been mostly devoted to the protests that started last summer after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but it also chronicles Tejan-Thomas Jr.'s personal history.

David Zucchino says Wilmington, N.C., was once a mixed-race community with a thriving Black middle class. Then, in 1898, white supremacists staged a murderous coup. Originally broadcast Jan. 13, 2020.