Race

We Hold These Truths: How Newsroom Leaders Wrestled With Covering A Tumultuous Year

4:25pm June 03, 2021

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with NPR's Terry Samuel, PBS's Sara Just and Chicago Block Club's Dawn Rhodes about how editorial decisions are made in this fractured news environment.

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National

U.S. Boarding Schools Were The Blueprint For Indigenous Family Separation In Canada

4:25pm June 03, 2021

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Mary Annette Pember, correspondent for Indian Country Today, about the roots of indigenous boarding schools in the U.S., which were models for the Canadian system.

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Louisville, Ky., nonprofit Change Today, Change Tomorrow says it received a large reparations payment from a donor. "It is a blessing for us but also definitely owed," said Taylor Ryan (right), the group's founder, seen here with Deputy Director Nannie Gr

National

A Black Nonprofit Got A 6-Figure Payment From Someone Whose Family Enslaved People

12:00pm June 03, 2021

by Bill Chappell

The anonymous donor said that while investigating the origins of their family's wealth, they discovered their great-grandfather had owned six enslaved people in Bourbon County, Ky.

Remembering Red Summer: Years Of Racial Violence 'Set The Stage' For Tulsa Massacre

4:15pm June 02, 2021

100 years later, the 1921 race massacre that destroyed a thriving Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla., is in the national spotlight. But at the time, this racist violence wasn't limited to Tulsa.

Civil rights activists are blocked by National Guard members brandishing bayonets while trying to stage a protest on Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968.

Historian Uncovers The Racist Roots Of The 2nd Amendment

3:41pm June 02, 2021

by Dave Davies

Carol Anderson says the Second Amendment was designed to ensure slave owners could quickly crush any rebellion or resistance from those they'd enslaved. Her new book is The Second.

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How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith

Books
Arts

'How The Word Is Passed' Teaches The Importance Of Reckoning With History

1:29pm June 02, 2021

by Hope Wabuke

Clint Smith seeks out troubling history, including white supremacy, white violence — and the erasure of the oppression of Black Americans — to understand what America tells itself about who we are.

Biden Met With Survivors To Commemorate The Tulsa Race Massacre Anniversary

6:25pm June 01, 2021

by Ayesha Rascoe

President Biden met with survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, marking the 100th anniversary of the violent attack that left as many as 300 dead and destroyed a vibrant Black community.

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National

The Neighborhood Of The Tulsa Race Massacre Faces Increasing Gentrification

5:05pm June 01, 2021

by Karen Grigsby Bates

The 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre commemorations are winding down, but the neighborhood where it took place, Greenwood, remains forever shaped by the event.

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Emily Kwong is host and reporter of NPR's Short Wave podcast.

A Daughter's Journey To Reclaim Her Heritage Language

4:12pm June 01, 2021

Assimilation has a cost. As a third generation Chinese American, NPR Short Wave's Emily Kwong is rediscovering the language her father once knew, and what that means for where she comes from.

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent.

Slavery Wasn't 'Long Ago': A Writer Exposes The Disconnect In How We Tell History

12:07pm June 01, 2021

by Terry Gross

In How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith visits eight places central to the history of slavery in America, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation and Louisiana's Angola prison.