African-American Issues

Wood Jr. will host the White House Correspondents' dinner April 29. In 2018, he explained how the years he spent performing in comedy clubs in the South and Midwest prepared him for The Daily Show.

Belafonte starred in films and helped popularize calypso music in the U.S. in the 1950s. In the '60s he became a civil rights activist. He died April 25. Originally broadcast in 1993.

Journalist Mark Whitaker says that much of what's happening in American race relations today traces back to 1966, the year when the Black Panthers were founded and the Black Power movement took full form.

Imani Perry says the South can be seen as an "origin point" for the way the nation operates. Her book South to America traces the steps of an enslaved ancestor. Originally broadcast Jan. 25, 2022.

In her new book, By Hands Now Known, Margaret Burnham reports on little-known cases of racial violence in the Jim Crow era, including crimes that went unreported and murderers who were never punished.

John Vercher trained in mixed martial arts as a young man. His novel, After the Lights Go Out, is about a veteran MMA fighter struggling to remember everyday things. Originally broadcast June 2022.

After a traumatic brain injury left her in terrible pain and unable to work, the legendary goalkeeper had to pawn her Olympic gold medals. Scurry charts her pioneering soccer career and her road to recovery in My Greatest Save.

The Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is about a Black gay man working as an usher on Broadway. Michael R. Jackson talks about writing the book, music and lyrics and how his time working as an usher at The Lion King on Broadway inspired it.

Giddens' Freedom Highway is an exploration of African American experiences, accompanied by an instrument with its own uniquely African American story: the banjo. Originally broadcast May 11, 2017.

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.

The comic, actor and writer opens up about his name, his family tree and his sexual orientation in a new HBO special. "The more honest I am, the freer I am," Carmichael says.

White Lies author A.J. Baime tells the story of Walter White, a light-skinned Black man whose ancestors had been enslaved. For years White risked his life investigating racial violence in the South.

David Blight's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography traced Douglass' path from slavery to abolitionist and inspired HBO's documentary, Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches. Originally broadcast in 2018.

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.

Spector, who died Jan. 12, was part of the 1960s girl group that gave us "Be My Baby." She left the music business for some years but returned to recording in the 1970s. Originally broadcast in 1988.

The former creative director at Vogue magazine and larger-than-life fashion influencer died Jan. 18. Talley spoke to Fresh Air in 2018 about growing up in Durham, N.C., and discovering fashion.

Parks, who died in 2006, worked for Life magazine and later became the first Black director of a Hollywood film. He's the subject of the documentary, A Choice of Weapons. Originally broadcast in 1990.

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.