Race

As anti-trans legislation has ramped up, historian Jules Gill-Peterson turns the lens to the past in her book, A Short History of Trans Misogyny. This week, we talk about how panics around trans femininity are shaped by wider forces of colonialism, segregation and class interests.

What does a comedian know about baseball? And what can America's oldest baseball field tell us about the civil rights movement?

Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama is America's oldest ballpark. It's older than Wrigley Field and Fenway park. But its history is full of contradictions. In its heyday, Rickwood was home to both the Birmingham Barons and the Birmingham Black Barons, one of the most talented teams in the Negro Leagues. The field hosted a women's suffrage event, but the stadium's owner also allowed a KKK rally to take place there.

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. hosts a new podcast called Road to Rickwood from WWNO & WRKF, which takes a closer look at the field's history as a microcosm of the civil rights movement itself. Wood Jr. grew up in Birmingham playing baseball at Rickwood. In the podcast, he speaks to historians, civic leaders, major league baseball executives, former Negro Leaguers, and members of Alabama's first integrated sports team. For himself and those he interviewed, baseball was an oasis. It was also a space where racism shaped the lives of some of the nation's best baseball players.

In today's episode of The Sunday Story, Wood Jr. sits down with host Ayesha Rascoe to talk baseball, Birmingham, and race in America.

A new podcast from LAist Studios and the NPR Network explores how events that played out decades ago shape AAPI families today.

Journalist Alexia Fernández Campbell says some freed men and women were given titles to land following the Civil War -- but after President Lincoln's death, the land was taken back.

Martin Luther King Jr. called civil rights pioneer, the Rev. James Lawson, the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence.