1619

In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Code Switch

The last few weeks have been filled with devastating news — stories about the police killing black people. At this point, these calamities feel familiar — so familiar, in fact, that their details have begun to echo each other.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

The United State of Anxiety

Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells is in some ways a forgotten figure, overlooked even in black civil rights history. But her reporting on lynchings across the South was unwavering in its mission: calling America out on racial injustice. And, why black women are no longer willing to play the role of “Magical Negro” in U.S. politics.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

White Lies

In 1965, Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama. Three men were tried and acquitted, but no one was ever held to account. Fifty years later, two journalists from Alabama return to the city where it happened, expose the lies that kept the murder from being solved and uncover a story about guilt and memory that says as much about America today as it does about the past.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Sidedoor

A 1921 riot destroyed almost 40 blocks of a wealthy black neighborhood in North Tulsa, Oklahoma. No one knows how many people died, no one was ever convicted and no one really talked about it until a decade ago. This is the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre and why it's important that you know it.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Reply All

New York City cops are in a fight against their own police department. They say it’s under the control of a broken computer system that punishes cops who refuse to engage in racist, corrupt policing. The story of their fight, and the story of the grouchy idealist who originally built the machine they’re fighting.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Reply All

This is the second part of a two-part series. For part one, listen to The Crime Machine, Part I.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Crime Town

“I’m a stupid idiot who stole some money.” Curtis Roberts was sentenced to 50 years to life, under the three strikes law, for committing three non-violent robberies. Over the years he has struggled to maintain a sense of hope in a situation many would consider untenable.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

What Next

Back in July, President Trump addressed the nation from the Rose Garden. The Supreme Court had just ruled that the 2020 census could not ask the citizenship question and the president was there to acknowledge that fact. However, he was also there to issue an executive order. One that would try to count the number of citizens in the country by other means.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Pod Save The People

This week DeRay, Brittany, Sam, and Clint discuss the murder of George Floyd and the protests around the nation. Then, DeRay sits down with Justine Barron and Amelia McDonell-Parry, who have been researching the death and cover-up of Freddie Gray, which just hit a five-year anniversary.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

There Goes The Neighborhood

Gentrification is something everyone is talking about -- and the conversation is often heated. It's a complicated idea with a range of factors: race, class, history, policy. And of course there is the personal experience that we each bring to the table.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Radiolab

In the state of California, it is off-limits to administer an IQ test to a child if he or she is Black. That’s because of a little-known case called Larry P v Riles that in the 1970s … put the IQ test itself on trial. With the help of reporter Lee Romney, we investigate how that lawsuit came to be, where IQ tests came from, and what happened to one little boy who got caught in the crossfire.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts