African American issues

Jonathan Olshefski spent 10 years filming Christopher Rainey and his family, who run a recording studio in a working-class African-American section of North Philadelphia. Then their daughter was shot.

Ward's National Book Award-winning novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, is set in a small town modeled after her own rural hometown. It centers on a biracial young boy confronting the South's racial legacy.

Eric Garner was the 47 year old man who died at the hands of police in 2014 after he was pushed to the ground and put into an illegal choke hold. Garner repeated the words "I can't breath" eleven times before he died. His death was captured on a cell phone and went viral. And latter spurred on the Black Lives Matter movement. Matt Taibbi set out to find out who Garner was, and how he died.

Danielle Allen's memoir centers on her cousin Michael, who was sentenced to a long prison term for carjacking when he was 15. Three years after his release, he was found shot to death in a parked car.

James Forman Jr., son of civil rights activists, says that African-American leaders seeking to combat drugs and crime often supported policies that disproportionately targeted the black community.

Author Sheryll Cashin's talks about the Loving v. Virginia ruling, which overturned state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Cashin grew up the child of civil rights activists in Huntsville, Ala

Sixty-three years after the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the country either remain segregated or have re-segregated. Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that when it comes to school segregation, separate is never truly equal.

Writer and actress Issa Rae is upfront about the fact that she doesn't always fit in.In 2011, Rae brought that sensibility to her Web comedy series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, which ran for two seasons. Now, Rae continues to explore themes of race, identity and belonging as the creator and star of the new HBO series Insecure.

Glover created, co-writes and stars in the FX series Atlanta, a hybrid of comedy and drama set on the fringes of the city's hip-hop scene. He has also recorded music under the name Childish Gambino.

Film director Barry Jenkins and playwright Tarell McCraney both grew up in the same housing project in Miami, and both were raised by mothers who were addicted to crack. Their new film Moonlight draws on their experiences.