African-American Issues

Norris wanted to see how Americans view race, so she asked people to share their thoughts in six words. Eventually, the project grew, garnering some 500,000 million entries from 100+ countries.

Journalist Antonia Hylton has written a new book, "Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum". And in it, Hylton traces one of the last segregated asylums in the nation - Crownsville Hospital in Maryland, built in 1911 from the ground up by 12 Black men who would later become patients there, some spending their entire lives in the hospital.

Tracee Ellis Ross co-stars in the Oscar-nominated movie American Fiction. For eight seasons, she starred in the ABC comedy series Black-ish. We talk about her new projects, her superstar mother, Diana Ross, and forging her own path outside of her mother's success. We also talk about how she's come to embrace, at 51, never having children or being married.

Actor Courtney B. Vance and psychologist Dr. Robin Smith co-authored the book "The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain And Reclaiming Their Power."

Historian Tanisha Ford shares the untold story of Mollie Moon, known as one of the most influential women of the civil rights era in her new book "Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind The Civil Rights Movement".

In the new memoir, Worthy, Pinkett Smith writes about her marriage, her career in Hollywood, her upbringing in Baltimore and her friendship with the late rapper Tupac Shakur. She also chronicles her struggle with depression and her efforts to better understand and accept herself.

R. Eric Thomas Thomas' new book, Congratulations, the Best Is Over!, is about middle age, and what it feels like to go back to the place where you were born — especially when your relationship with that place is complicated.

The Negro League, which was founded in 1920, featured a scrappier, hit-and-run, base-stealing style of play. Years later, as the first Black player to play in MLB in the modern era, Jackie Robinson would bring the same energy to a wider audience.

In Black Folk, Blair Kelley portrays generations of Black workers — Pullman porters, domestic laborers, USPS employees, COVID-19 essential workers — who have contributed to the nation's prosperity.

The late rapper — who was killed at 25 in 1996 — would have turned 52 this year. Santi Elijah Holley's new book follows the Shakur family tree and their work in the Black Liberation Movement.

Sykes has a new comedy special on Netflix titled "I'm An Entertainer," where she takes on everything from raising teenagers with her French wife to the dilemmas of living in a hyper-charged political climate.

The title of Irby's new memoir in essays, Quietly Hostile, was inspired by her own public persona, which she describes as a "a constant low-grade frustration with everything" wrapped in "an outer shield of Midwestern politeness and charm."

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.