Race

Fred Harris, pictured in 2016, is the last surviving member of the Kerner commission. Their report openly discussed racism in the U.S. in a way that sent shockwaves through the country.

Politics & Government

The Kerner Commission's Last Living Member Says We Still Need To Talk About Racism

3:23pm September 27, 2021

by Mycah Hazel

Former U.S. Sen. Fred Harris is the last surviving member of the Kerner commission, appointed in 1967 to study the root causes of social unrest in America. Its groundbreaking report blamed racism.

Queue Listen Now

Tiny Desk Teams Up With Alt.Latino This Month

7:54am September 26, 2021

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre about their Alt.Latino Tiny Desk takeover for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Country singer Mickey Guyton released her latest album, Remember Her Name, on Sept. 24.

Music & Culture

On Debut Album, Mickey Guyton Remembers Her Name

2:54pm September 24, 2021

Over the last decade, singer-songwriter Mickey Guyton has been trying to convince the country music industry that she is country. NPR's Noel King talks her about the highs and lows she's experienced.

Created in 2018, the Our Black Girls website centers the stories of missing Black girls and women.

National

Tens Of Thousands Of Black Women Vanish Each Year. This Website Tells Their Stories

10:55am September 24, 2021

by Sharon Pruitt-Young

Erika Marie Rivers created the Our Black Girls website to shine a light on Black girls and women who have gone missing or were murdered, a demographic that gets disproportionately less media coverage.

Music & Culture

A New York Metropolitan Opera First: Performing A Work By A Black Composer

6:34am September 24, 2021

Terence Blanchard will become the first Black composer to put on a show at the Metropolitan Opera in the institution's 138 year history. Blanchard's Fire Shut Up In My Bones will be performed.

Plan To Widen Highway In South Carolina Would Cut Through Black And Brown Communities

4:40pm September 23, 2021

NPR's Leila Fadel talks with Omar Muhammad, executive director of the Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities, on communities in North Charleston, S.C., facing displacement for a highway project.

National

Monument Marking End Of Slavery Unveiled In Virginia, Weeks After Lee Statue Removed

10:49am September 23, 2021

by Patrick Larsen

Just weeks after officials in Richmond, Va., took down the nation's largest statue of Robert E. Lee, a new monument is going up — the Emancipation and Freedom Monument to mark the end of slavery.

A "For Sale by Owner" sign is posted in front of property in Monterey Park, Calif., in April 2020.

National

Black And Latino Homeowners Are About Twice As Likely As Whites To Get Low Appraisals

6:00am September 23, 2021

by Joe Hernandez

A new analysis by Freddie Mac has found that only 7.4% of appraisals in majority-white census tracts came in below contract price, compared with 12.5% for Black areas and 15.4% for Latino ones.

National

Survivor Of 1973 Rape Says She May Have Identified The Wrong Man Due To Racial Bias

5:08pm September 22, 2021

by Jenifer McKim

A Black man convicted of raping a white woman in 1973 in Boston will get a new day in court. The victim says she may have identified the wrong man, blaming racial bias. They'll be in court Thursday.

Evidence seized from a drug trafficking operation in central California in early 2020 included methamphetamine and fentanyl with a street value of $1.5 million, authorities said.

Methamphetamine Deaths Soar, Hitting Black And Native Americans Especially Hard

5:08pm September 22, 2021

by Brian Mann

Newly published U.S. data finds overdose deaths from methamphetamine use more than doubled in recent years. Use of the stimulant among Black Americans surged nearly tenfold.