On Race Matters and Social Justice

From the popular radio program, This American Life, Nikole Hannah-Jones reports on a school district that accidentally stumbled on an integration program in recent years. It's the Normandy School District in Normandy, Missouri. Normandy is on the border of Ferguson, Missouri, and the district includes the high school that Michael Brown attended. 30 minutes. Air date: July 31, 2015

Nikole Hannah-Jones' story on the Normandy school district from This American Life continues. Part I looked at a school disintegrating by accident. In Part II, Hannah-Jones looks at a city going all out to integrate its schools. 14 minutes. Air date: August 7, 2015

Professor, writer, and activist Dr. Joy James joins the Groundings Podcast to discuss her work around abolition. More specifically, we look at what Dr. James calls "academic abolitionism", the role that academics play in halting or co-opting revolutionary organizing, the current state of the prison abolition movement, and why it is revolutionary to start our political organizing with one simple question: what do Black children need? Air date: January 1, 2021

This podcast is part of a series about hope from "To the Best of Our Knowledge" from WI Public Radio. It features organizer and activist DeRay McKesson who claims that hoping for big change is great, but it doesn't go anywhere without small actions where people take care of one another. 12.25mins. Original air date April 27 2019. Post date June 5, 2020.

This podcast includes two interviews by Terry Gross: one in 1986 with James Baldwin on his writings about civil rights and the other in 2017 with Raoul Peck, film director of "I am Not Your Negro." 20 mins. Original air date January 2017. Post date June 12, 2020.

This podcast is from the NPR series "This American Life." Alison Aubrey reports on interviews with three psychologists who recommend more ways to take action. 7mins. Post date June 7, 2020

This podcast is from the NPR series "The Hidden Brain." Far from being "the great equalizer," COVID-19 has disproportionately sickened and killed African Americans and Latinos in the U.S. Many of the reasons for these inequalities reach back to before the pandemic began. This week, we return to a 2019 episode that investigates a specific source of racial disparities in medicine and beyond—and considers an uncomfortable solution. 36.17mins. May 25, 2020.

This collection from the Library of Congress features recordings of former slaves that took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-three interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond.