Into America (MSNBC, Trymaine Lee)

As a bonus for Into America listeners, Trymaine joins Chris Hayes on Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast to catch up on life, the latest news, and what’s to come in the midterm elections. Plus, Chris gets an inside look at the new Into America series “The Power of the Black Vote.” 

Listen to the full episode now. And check out more Why Is This Happening? wherever you get your podcasts. 

Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was never supposed to end up in an exhibit on Reconstruction at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. But then the 17-year-old boy was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, while carrying nothing but a cell phone, a pack of Skittles, and a can of iced tea. 

Kidada Williams, a history professor at Wayne State University tells Trymaine Lee that she sees a clear through line between Reconstruction and Trayvon Martin. “The way he was targeted for minding his own business, the way he was demonized, and in some cases blamed for his own [death] is very consistent with what happened during Reconstruction,” she explains.

Like Emmett Till before him, Trayvon’s story galvanized a people and changed a nation. Protests sprang up across the country as the story gained traction, helped in large part by Trymaine Lee’s reporting. A generation of young people became activists, and the phrase “Black Lives Matter” became a rallying cry.

But when Trayvon became a face of the movement, it came with a cost — born largely by those closest to Trayvon, like his dad, Tracy Martin. "I’m giving to society, but do society really understand what I've given up?” he asks. "We don't look to bury our kids. We don't look to eulogize them or try to define what their legacy is to be. And during that process, man, it just, it really tears you up.” 

(Original release date: February 24, 2022)

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

For More: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Reconstructed: In Search of the Promised Land
• Reconstructed: Keep the Faith, Baby

When the news of a Freaknik documentary hit Twitter, people joked about seeing their parents, aunts, uncles on film having too much of a good time. Freaknik was a legendary street party that started in Atlanta back in the early 80s and became a destination for young Black people to dance, watch step shows, and see concerts.

“It was the perfect storm. You know, it could not happen anywhere else. It had to happen in Atlanta,” rap legend Uncle Luke told Trymaine Lee. At one point, Luke was crowned “King of Freaknik.”

This week Into America continues our celebration of Hip-Hop 50 by revisiting the rise and fall of the greatest block party America has ever seen, and the impact that Freaknik still has on Atlanta and Black youth culture today. Featuring the people who lived it, including Uncle Luke, Maurice Hobson, radio host Kenny Burns, and Freaknik co-founder Sharon Toomer.

(Original release date: June 30, 2022)

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Street Disciples: The Concrete Jungle
• Big Daddy Kane’s Lyrical Legacy
• Black Joy in the Summertime

At one point, Florida’s Apalachee Bay was dominating the seafood industry, but over the years it has experienced a sharp decline from climate change and environmental destruction. When a local oyster farmer took notice, he connected with his friends at the historically Black college, Florida A&M University, for help. 

FAMU has a long history of environmental stewardship, and leading environmental causes. That’s why this generation of Black students are working on FAMU’s Rattler Moji Project, a solar-powered water-sensing buoy that collects data for scientists' research and helps filter clean water for oysters to thrive in the bay once again.

This week on Into America, Trymaine Lee visits the sunshine state as part of his “Power of the Black Vote” tour. He joins the Rattler Moji research team to learn how the work they’re doing out on the water has influenced how they think about climate change, and how that could impact their vote in the midterm elections this November. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More:

• The Power of the Black Vote: Taking Back the Classroom
• The Power of the Black Vote: Knocking Out Student Loan Debt
• Louisiana’s Last Black Oystermen

The rioters on January 6th were overwhelmingly white and male. But sprinkled throughout the mob were several Black people and other people of color. 

In fact, a Black man who organized the January 6th “stop the steal” rally. It was from that rally’s podium that then-president Donald Trump exhorted his followers to take their grievances down the street to the Capitol building. And Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, one of the most prominent far-right groups at the Capitol that day, describes himself as Afro-Cuban. These are just two Black voices in a far-right movement that has become increasingly multiracial, despite that very movement being beholden to ideals of white supremacy.

Joe Lowndes is a professor of political science at the University of Oregon. His research focuses on right-wing extremism, populism and racial politics. He says these movements are less rural and white than they once were, and tells Trymaine Lee why leaders from across the political spectrum need to pay attention. 

Please follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Black Christmas music is a genre of its own. From originals like “All I Want for Christmas is You,” to our spin on the so-called classics, these songs have become a staple in Black households. 

In the spirit of the holiday season, Trymaine sits down with music industry veteran Naima Cochrane to take us on a deep dive into some of the best and most influential Black Christmas songs of all time. We get into Whitney Houston’s take on “Joy to the World,” James Brown’s “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto,” and more!

And, we get the back-story on “This Christmas” from Nadine Scott McKinnor, the writer behind the Donny Hathaway classic.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica.

For More:

• Naima’s Christmas Playlists: Baby Jesus, Bells, and Bodyrolls, Jazzy Holiday, & Soulfulass Christmas 
• And check out the Into America playlist on Spotify

Can reparations be a reality for all Black Americans? In New York, the state Gabriel Coakley’s descendants now call home, the governor has signed a bill creating a task force to consider reparations for formerly enslaved people. It’s the third state to do so. But beyond local considerations, does this debate have real momentum at a national level? In the final episode of “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” we take a look at public opinion polling on reparations, along with the dollars and cents of making this a reality across the country. And we return to Gabriel Coakley’s descendants to understand how the family plans to keep alive the legacy of service and Black liberation he started a century and a half ago.

As we round out our series, Trymaine is joined by: the Coakley-Flateau family, Duke University professor Dr. William Darity, New York Senator Zellnor Myrie, Amherst political science professor Tatishe Nteta, and archivist Dr. Lopez Matthews.

One question has plagued our nation since its founding: will Black people in America ever experience full citizenship?  

In searching for an answer, Into America is collaborating with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for a series on the legacy of Reconstruction. We tour the museum’s Make Good the Promises exhibit with co-curator Spencer Crew, who helps use artifacts to bring the history of the era to life. Over four episodes, ‘Reconstructed’ will explore how after the Civil War, Black Americans gained citizenship and political power, planted roots and formed communities on newly acquired land, and how the newly freed drew on their faith to carry them through violent white backlash.

The story begins in the late 1860s, as the newly freed became citizens under the law and Black men gained the right to vote.Black Americans across the South suddenly had the power to exert control over their own lives. In the face of horrific violence from their white neighbors, Black people voted in liberal governments across the South, elevating hundreds of their own to places of political power. 

Perhaps no one exemplifies this more than the lateCongressman Robert Smalls. As his great-great-grandson Michael Boulware Moore tells Trymaine Lee, Smalls’ daring escape from slavery and wartime actions made him a hero. Then, like hundreds of newly freed Black Americans, he decided to get involved in politics in his hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina. 

Smalls helped found the state’sRepublican Party in 1868 and served in the state legislature, where he crafted laws to create the first free compulsory public school system in the country. In 1874, he was elected to the US House of Representatives, where he remained for five terms. 

Not long after Smalls left office, much of the progress of Reconstruction had been undone by a combination of white violence, Northern apathy, and severe voting restrictions aimed at Black Americans. 

And more than a century later, we still see the impact of this brief time of Black political power, through people like the current Democratic National Committee chair and South Carolina native Jaime Harrison, who tells Trymaine how today’s 20th-Century fight for voting rights is a continuation of the Reconstruction era. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening:

• Check out the NMAAHC’s Make Good the Promises Exhibit
• Into a New Voting Rights Act
• Into America: DC Votes Yes

In Part 3 of Into America’s Black History Month series, Harlem on My Mind, Trymaine Lee spotlights the influence of Jessie Redmon Fauset. Langston Hughes called her one of the midwives of the Harlem Renaissance, but few today remember her name.

As literary editor for NAACP’s The Crisis magazine, Fauset fostered the careers of many notable writers of the time: poets Countee Cullen and Gwendolyn Bennet, novelist Nella Larsen, writer Claude McCay. Fauset was the first person to publish Langston Hughes, when The Crisis printed the poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Fauset was also a writer, penning essays and poems. She went on to write four novels, including There is Confusion (1924). Her focus on bourgeois characters and women’s ambition shaped the conversation about Black identity in Harlem at the time.

Dr. Julia S. Charles, professor of English at Auburn University, sheds light on the full scope of Fauset’s work, including her complicated relationship with Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois and other notable Black thinkers. Author Morgan Jerkins describes how Fauset’s legacy has inspired her own work as a writer, editor, and resident of today’s Harlem.

Special thanks to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening:

• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence
• Harlem on My Mind: Arturo Schomburg
• The Forgotten Work of Jessie Redmon Fauset

Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25th 2020, America has been reeling from the shock of that initial violent act and the anguish that sent thousands into the streets in protest across the country. 

And when those guilty verdicts were delivered, some were brought to tears that a black family had finally tasted something close to justice. But one verdict does little to untether America from its roots, some four hundred years deep and growing. 

Have the past year of protests and the push for reform bent America any closer toward justice for all? Or does justice remain a dream deferred for black America? 

I set out to answer those questions in a series of conversations with thinkers, doers, activists and policymakers who know intimately where we’ve been and perhaps where we’re headed. Panelists include:

• Jelani Cobb, staff writer at The New Yorker and NBC News contributor
• Anna Deavere Smith, an actress, professor, and playwright who created a Tony nominated one woman show about the 1992 Los Angeles riots
• Representative Mondaire Jones, freshman Democratic Congressman who represents New York's 17th Congressional District
• Carmen Best, former Seattle police chief and NBC News law enforcement analyst
• Marlon Petersen, host of the Decarcerated podcast and author of Bird Uncaged and Abolitionist Freedom Song
• Trayvon Free, writer, director and comedian
• Lee Merritt, civil rights attorney
• Dr. Sandy Darity, the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor at Duke University
• Amanda Seales, comedian and creator of Smart, Funny and Black
• Martin Luther King II, the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a human and civil rights advocate

We hope you enjoy these conversations from Trymaine Lee’s NBC News Now special Can You Hear Us Now? One Year Later.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Viewing and Listening: 

• Watch: Can You Hear Us Now? One Year Later
• Into America: After George Floyd
• Into America: The Weight of Bearing Witness

The conversative, white majority in Mississippi’s state legislature has continued to systematically undermine the ability of its capital, the Black city of Jackson, to govern itself.  

Pointing to the city’s homicide rate — the highest of any major city in the country — state lawmakers contended that Jackson’s police department isn’t equipped to handle crime, and moved to expand the powers of the Capitol Police, a law enforcement agency that answers to the state. 

But the Capitol Police unit has little experience fighting crime, and in the months since its reach was first expanded last summer, the force has become known for its aggressive tactics — including four shootings in the last half of 2022, one of them fatal. In that same time, there were just 10 officer-involved shootings in the rest of the state. 

This week, Into America heads to Jackson to speak with Black residents affected by this expansion: Latasha Smith, who was shot in her bedroom by Capitol Police, Arkela Lewis, a mother who lost her son, pastor Dr. Dwayne Pickett, State Representative Earle Banks (D-Jackson), and anti-violence activist Terun Moore.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• We Save Ourselves
• Without Water in Jackson
• How did a police chase in Mississippi end with an innocent woman shot in her bedroom?
• Mississippi wants to expand an aggressive police force responsible for recent shootings

Hip-hop is a rose that grew from concrete. And there’s no other place it could have grown than the fertile soil of the South Bronx. At the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning destroyed neighborhoods and led to white flight, and tall high-density towers re-arranged the landscape of the borough. Around the same time, a massive wave of Caribbean immigrants and Black Southerners were migrating to the South Bronx, leading to a convergence of cultures that would light a spark for the birth of hip-hop in the summer of 1973.

Hip-hop is turning 50 this year. So, for Black History Month, Into America is presenting “Street Disciples: Politics, Power, and the Rise of Hip-Hop.” Trymaine Lee is looking back on the political conditions and policies that have inspired half a century of hip-hop, and how over time, hip-hop began to shape America. 

On part one of “Street Disciples,” how the concrete jungle of New York in the 1970s led to the birth and spread of hip-hop. Trymaine is joined by: Kool DJ Red Alert, DJ Grandwizzard Theodore, historian Mark Anthony Neal, sociologist Tricia Rose, and journalist Davey D.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

Check out our previous Black History series here: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence

On the final stop of our HBCU tour on The Power of the Black Vote, we travel to Atlanta, home of three of the most prestigious historically Black colleges and universities: Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark Atlanta, to talk with HBCU students about the Black youth vote. 

Georgia has always played a significant role in the fight for voting rights in this country. And when Stacey Abrams lost her race for governor in 2018, young Black voters who were tired and fed-up began to mobilize on their campuses. For years, Black student voter turnout was on the decline in the state, but with rising voter suppression tactics and voter purges, student organizers and grassroots organizations started a movement to get out the vote. This resulted in an unprecedented Black youth voter turnout in the 2020 general election, which ultimately led to Georgia turning blue for the first time in years. 

But with the midterm election right around the corner, student organizers like Janiah Henry, a student political activist at Clark Atlanta University, are struggling to keep that momentum going. 

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine speaks with Henry about how she is energizing the Black youth to get out and vote this November. He also speaks with Ciarra Malone, an organizer forCampus Vote Project, who has made it her mission to strengthen civic engagement on HBCU campuses throughout the state. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More: 

• The Power of the Black Vote: Taking Back the Classroom
• The Power of the Black Vote: Knocking Out Student Loan Debt
• The Power of the Black Vote: Tackling Our Climate Crisis
• The Power of the Black Vote: We Save Ourselves
• Young Black voters are dominating the Georgia midterms one student at a time

In a follow up to the series Uncounted Millions: the Power of Reparations - which chronicled the remarkable story of Gabriel Coakley, one of the only Black Americans to ever receive reparations for slavery – Trymaine Lee hosted a live discussion and debate on the future of reparations for Black Americans at the 92nd Street Y on May 29th, 2024. Trymaine was joined onstage by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and author and columnist at thegrio.com, Michael Harriot. The conversation ranged from the case for reparations today...what might be owed and who should qualify...and what might it take for legislation to finally break through. 

There’s a prevailing narrative within our society when it comes to Black men, one which was spelled out in detail more than fifty years ago, but which continues to sit right at home in our country’s family of stereotypes about Blackness. The narrative goes that Black men don’t stick around to parent the children we father.

Shaka Senghor is out to change that narrative. His most recent book, Letters to the Sons of Society, is written as a collection of letters to his own two sons, born twenty years apart. Shaka’s oldest son grew up without him present – he was born six months after Shaka entered prison for a murder he committed when he was 19. His younger son was born after Shaka was released, and he grew up with a father who was a successful author and constant loving presence in his life. The book traces Shaka’s journey as a Black man in America and aims to unpack the toxic and misguided messages about masculinity, mental health, love, and success that boys learn from an early age.

This week on Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with author and activist Shaka Senghor about fatherhood and how we teach our sons to be men.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening: 

• Fathers of the Movement
• My Dad, Rodney King

California’s official task force on reparations has delivered its final report to the state legislature.

The report includes a formula for determining direct financial compensation, along with more than 100 other recommendations, including establishing universal health care, implementing rent caps in historically redlined neighborhoods, and making Election Day a paid holiday.

And in their report, the authors spent a significant amount of time explaining why reparations are necessary for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans, and why the government is responsible.

Three years ago, host Trymaine Lee spoke about this case for reparations with Nikole Hannah-Jones,  creator of the 1619 Project, and now, a journalism professor at Howard University. The conversation came right after Nikole published her article “What is Owed” in her role as a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine. 

In light of California taking one small step closer toward reparations, we’re bringing back that discussion.  

This podcast was originally published on June 24, 2020.  

For more:

• California's reparations report excludes payment plan but is full of program proposals
• For two California reparations task force members, the hard work comes next
• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation 

Into America has a live show coming up! Pulitzer prize-winning writer Nikole Hannah-Jones and acclaimed author and columnist Michael Harriot will join host Trymaine Lee onstage at the 92nd St Y in New York City on Wednesday May 29th. As a follow up to our “Uncounted Millions” series, Trymaine, Nikole, and Michael will grapple with what reparations could and should look like for Black Americans going forward. You can join us in-person or via live stream.

Get your tickets now while still available.

For more: 

Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations

The 1619 Project

Michael Harriot’s columns at theGrio

Before he was Big Daddy Kane, the legendary MC who broke out big in the late 80s, he was just Antonio Hardy, the kid from Brooklyn who heard something new coming out of the turntables at the block party. It was the sound of hip-hop coming of age, and Kane was coming up with it. Soon, he’d be writing his own rhymes and traveling to other boroughs to battle their best MCs.

Big Daddy Kane would go on to become one of the most versatile rappers of his day, with hits like “Ain’t No Half-Steppin,’” and “Smooth Operator.” He came up alongside the late great Biz Markie, and joined up with Marley Marl and the Juice Crew, establishing himself as one of the pioneers of the golden age of hip-hop.

Trymaine talks with Kane about those early days in Brooklyn, what he can offer today’s rappers, and what the forthcoming Universal Hip-Hop Museum could mean for Black culture.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening:

• Link to stream NYC Homecoming Week concert series
• Raekwon, KRS-One, George Clinton, Big Daddy Kane to Headline New York City Concert Series
• Universal Hip-Hop Museum

During the 2022 Oscars’ ceremony, Will Smith shocked the world. Smith strode onstage and smacked Chris Rock, after the comedian made a joke about Smith’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith. Smith went on to win the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Venus and Serena Williams’s father in King Richard, and later in the night he and Rock reportedly made amends.

When Smith was announced as the winner of the Oscar for Best Actor the audience gave him a standing ovation as he approached the stage. The first thing that he said in his tearful five-minute acceptance speech was that “Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” and he went on to talk about “protecting” the Black women who co-starred in King Richard with him.  

Since Sunday the internet has been abuzz with reaction. Commentators like Eric Deggans and Craig Melvin have condemned Smith’s actions. But many saw an act of chivalry, with people like actress Tiffany Haddish and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley praising what they viewed as Smith’s defense of his wife.

So what does it actually mean to protect Black women? And is physical violence ever an acceptable response to verbal abuse? This week on Into America, activist Jamira Burley weighs in. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Please follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening:

• We Gotta Talk About Kanye West
• Hear Jamira’s early appearance on the show: Into the DNC and Black Lives

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an iconic American artist who rose to fame in the downtown New York City cultural scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. By 18-years-old, Basquiat had already begun spray-painting tantalizing texts on the walls of lower Manhattan under the pseudonym SAMO. In the years to come, Basquiat would transition from street tagger to gallery artist, taking the world by storm. Today, Basquiat’s legacy looms over us, larger than ever. His images and symbols grace Uniqlo t-shirts and Tiffany & Co jewelry campaigns. In 2017, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s powerful 1982 painting of a skull was purchased for $110.5 million, becoming the sixth most expensive work ever sold at auction.

But has Basquiat’s pop cultural significance eclipsed the artist’s place in art history? During his lifetime, he struggled to gain acceptance from critics in the predominantly-white art world. And of the more than 800 paintings Basquiat produced in the several years before his untimely death, there are only two of these works available for viewing in a permanent museum collection in New York City. The vast majority of Basquiat works live in private collections, making them hard to access.  

This week on Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with Basquiat’s former bandmate and friend, Michael Holman, about the young artist’s coming of age in 1980s New York. Then we explore the crisis of Basquiat’s archive with American art historian Jordana Saggese. And finally we take a trip to Basquiat’s childhood and speak with Basquiat’s younger sisters, Jeanine Heriveaux and Lisane Basquiat, to unfold their early relationship and a new April 2022 exhibition they are curating in honor of their late brother.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening:

• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence
• The Sun Rises in the East

Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. met just one time in life, on March 26, 1964, during Congressional hearings for the Civil Rights Act. The two are often described as opposites, and their styles in the fight for Black freedom were undoubtedly different. But the men had a respect for each other that grew into a deep bond between the two families following their assassinations. 

Today, Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughters of Malcolm X, and Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of MLK, share a birthright of inherited activism that few others can understand. They each run their families’ foundations, the Shabazz Center and King Center, and strive to carry on their parents’ fight for the future.

As one generation’s fight for racial equality spills into the next, Shabazz and Dr. King talk with Trymaine Lee on the latest Into America about their famous parents, the ongoing push for equality, and what it means to inherit a legacy.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Viewing and Listening:

• “The Dead Are Arising,” Into America
• Watch: Daughters Of Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X Reflect On Fight For Equality

As hip-hop found its rhythm in the late 80s and early 90s, artists had to grapple with the scars of violence the drug war was causing within the community, using music videos like “Self Destruction” to hold each other accountable, and trying not to unravel in the face of what was happening in the streets. 

This is also when hip-hop began to expand outside of New York, to Los Angeles, where California’s own policies and structures were shaping the rise of gangsta rap. 

These movements culminated in the so-called “golden age” of hip-hop, a time of maturing and sophistication in the music.  But along with that maturity came uncertainty from national leaders, and a new wave of commercialization that threatened to unravel this political artform.

On this episode of “Street Disciples,” Trymaine Lee hears from: Daddy-O from the hip-hop group Stetsasonic, rapper and producer The D.O.C., Video Music Box’s Ralph McDaniels, radio host Bobbito Garcia, writer Nelson George, and journalist Davey D.

Note: this episode contains several instances of profanity. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Street Disciples: The Concrete Jungle
• Street Disciples: Broken Glass Everywhere

Last month a new charter school opened on San Antonio’s East Side. Essence Preparatory Public School was founded with a specific mission: to serve the Black and brown children that the public school system was consistently failing, developing those children into leaders for their community.

But as Essence Prep made its way throughTexas’s charter approval process, they were drawn into the state’s battle over how race and history is taught in public schools. The school was even forced to update their charter application, with state authorities saying that they used the words “Black” and “brown” too many times. They lost months of preparation and a multi-million-dollar bond deal. And they accrued thousands of dollars in legal fees along the way.

But through it all, Essence Prep made it to opening day, and Into America was there. This week we take you along for the ride – the highs and lows that founder Akeem Brown traversed to get to this point, as well as the voices of the students, teachers, and parents that make up the community Essence Prep was founded to serve.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More:

• Take a Look, it's in a (Banned) Book
• Race and Education in an American Suburb

The filibuster is one of the better-known bits of procedure in the Senate. It might conjure images of politicians droning on for hours, or simply partisan gridlock, but the rule has an insidious, racial history. Senators have used it as a tool to block civil rights legislation since the later part of the 18th century. 

But this history isn’t confined to the past. Today, the threat of a filibuster is colliding with a fight over the future of voting rights, as Republicans vow to block a bill called H.R. 1, which expands voting protections for Black folks and other minorities.

There are growing calls to reform or even abolish the filibuster. But Republicans, and a few Democrats, won’t let go of the filibuster without a fight. Host Trymaine Lee talks with New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb about how the filibuster has been weaponized and racialized over time and asks whether American Democracy might be better off without it.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Joy Reid: Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema chasing a ‘mythical bipartisan beast’ by defending filibuster
• 'An inflection point': Congress prepares for battle over massive voting rights bill
• Biden says Senate filibuster is being 'abused' and must be changed

This moment calls for us to be honest and truthful about who we are as Americans, who we’ve been and who we hope to become. And there’s no way to do that without examining the role, range and power of Blackness in America. Trymaine Lee introduces a new look that speaks to the hopes, anxieties and aspirations of Black America. 

As the Coakley and Flateau families change and grow through time, so too does the conversation on reparations for Black Americans. In this episode of “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” both families move west to California, ultimately converging. Soon after, the Japanese Redress movement begins to shape the modern push for reparations in Black America.  

In part 4, Trymaine is joined by: attorney Don Tamaki, activist Emily Akpan and California Congresswoman Barbara Lee. 

On Saturday, May 14, a white 18-year-old drove to a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., and killed ten people in a racist attack. The gunman was alone, and reporting has revealed that he allegedly posted a manifesto with racist theories and his plans to kill Black people online. 

Law enforcement officials and the media often describe these kinds of perpetrator as lone wolves. But the work of white supremacy is never lonely. It’s propagated by social media, cable television pundits, and even politicians. 

And in the wake of this recent extremism, the Black community in Buffalo is left trying to survive the grieve. 

“There are no words. There are no solutions. There is no consolation. The community's reeling. Somebody walked into a grocery store and shot up a bunch of our grannies and aunties,” says India Walton, a community leader and former mayoral candidate in Buffalo. India speaks with Trymaine Lee about the shooting, the structural racism and white violence in Buffalo that has kept Black residents segregated and vulnerable, and how she will continue to fight for her community. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Viewing:

• Biden calls Buffalo shooting 'terrorism,' says 'white supremacy is a poison'
• The Buffalo shooting is part of a global network of white nationalist terror
   

Despite being the Blackest state in the country, Mississippi has little Black political representation; and the state’s policies have been hostile to its predominately Black capital city of Jackson. But in the face of the state’s political neglect, Black people have never stopped fighting to make their communities stronger. During the Civil Rights Movement, Mississippi was ground zero for activism, with Jackson State at the center. Now, a new generation is drawing on that tradition to look out for their communities. 

One of those people is Jackson State Junior Maisie Brown. She’s stepped up during the city’s water crisis to fill the gaps left by the state. As part of Into America’s “Power of the Black Vote” tour ahead of the midterms, host Trymaine Lee joins Maisie as she travels around Jackson, delivering clean drinking water to residents. 

And we visit Jackson State alum Laurie Bertram Roberts, founder of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. Laurie has spent her life fighting for reproductive rights, but her job has gotten harder after the fall of Roe. 

Trymaine also speaks with JSU history professor Robert Luckett about the social and political forces at work in the state. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More:

• The Power of the Black Vote: Taking Back the Classroom
• The Power of the Black Vote: Knocking Out Student Loan Debt
• The Power of the Black Vote: Tackling Our Climate Crisis
• Without Water in Jackson

It’s been one year since a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, DC. They were attempting to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election win by preventing theCongressional certification of his victory. 

As the attack on the Capitol unfolded, people on the internet immediately began to identify rioters and widely share details about them. Many of the rioters were fired from their jobs or even arrested.  

This practice is called doxxing. And using it to chase down far-right extremists became popular through a man named Daryle Lamont Jenkins.Jenkins is a self-described anti-fascist and the founder of One People’s Project. For over 20 years, Jenkins and his organization have used the internet to expose and publicly shame white supremacists. 

His work has brought him into direct contact with white supremacists at events like the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA, as well as with Black members of the far-right.

This week on Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with Jenkins about his fight to take on and put a stop to right-wing extremists.

Please follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening: 

• Into America: An Election and an Insurrection
• Into America: American Coup

Incarcerated women have largely been left out of the conversation when it comes to abortion rights, but they are often the one who suffer the most. Prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade pregnant people behind bars already faced limited access to abortions. And it’s Black women who bear the brunt of mass incarceration: they are imprisoned at almost twice the rate of white women.

This week, Into America looks at what it means to be pregnant behind bars. We speak with Pamela Winn who founded RestoreHER after suffering a miscarriage while serving time in a Georgia prison. She’s now fighting for laws that will help protect incarcerated pregnant women. And we check back in with Texas healthcare provider Marva Sadler about how the recent Supreme Court decision is already impacting women in her state.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening:

• The end of Roe is ‘horrific’ for incarcerated people seeking abortion care
• Some Black abortion providers are considering leaving the field for fear of prosecution
• Update: Inside a Texas Abortion Clinic

The 1619 Project was a career-defining moment for New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones. Released as a standalone issue of the Times Magazine in August 2019, the project sought to reframe the American narrative, linking our country’s founding to the arrival of the first enslaved Africans on the shores of Virginia.

When the project was initially released it was widely praised as a much-needed corrective to a white-washed version of American history. But there was also pushback from the likes of then-President Trump and Fox News. And some of that pushback was downright nasty.

This week, Penguin Random House is releasing the 1619 Project as a book, audiobook and children’s book. Into America’s Trymaine Lee is one of the book’s contributors. He and Nikole Hannah-Jones sat down to talk about the way the project has shaped America, how it’s shaped her, and the power of changing the narrative.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening:

• UNC withholds tenure for "1619 Project" journalist after conservative backlash
• How Trump ignited the fight over critical race theory in schools
• Into America: Into Reparations with Nikole Hannah-Jones

For the next few months, as the country gears up for the midterm elections, Into America is traveling to different HBCUs across the South for a special series called, “The Power of the Black Vote” to talk to young Black voters about the power of the Black vote in shaping America, and the issues that matter to them the most. 

To jump-start our series, we travel to Texas Southern University. The state of Texas has been the central battleground over how race and history are taught in schools. Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill that outlawed teaching history that causes “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” because of a student’s race. Since then, books have been banned and pulled from shelves, and faculty members who dare to teach lessons on racism and white supremacy in the state are being disciplined or fired.

In this episode of Into America, Trymaine speaks with Texas Southern University students who are pushing back. And he’s joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, NBC News Investigative reporter and co-host of the Southlake podcast, Mike Hixenbaugh, San Antonio educator Akeem Brown, and TSU Student Government Association President Dexter Maryland to have a conversation on race, education, and how we control our history. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More: 

• Watch the TSU Town Hall on Peacock beginning Sept 16
• Our Kids Are Scholars
• Race and Education in an American Suburb

On June 17, 2015, a white extremist shot and killed nine Black people in the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina as they gathered for a bible study group. 

This wasn’t the first time Mother Emanuel had been attacked. Church historian Elizabeth Alston tells Trymaine Lee, that in the 1820s, white people burned down Mother Emanuel in retaliation over a failed slave rebellion. For years, the congregation was forced to meet in secret. But through all the violence and backlash, the Black congregants relied on their faith, and during Reconstruction, they rebuilt. 

Mother Emanuel’s history mirrors the story of Black America. Through the centuries, faith has helped Black people find freedom, community, and strength, even in the face of violence.

In episode three of ‘Reconstructed,’ Into America explores the legacy of faith through Reconstruction. Historian Kidada Williams shares testimonies of the devastating violence and terrorism that white people inflicted upon their Black neighbors. And Spencer Crew, co-curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s exhibit on Reconstruction, explains how faith and the church were vital to the survival of newly freed people. 

This tradition of faith in the face of backlash holds true today. Trymaine talks with Bree Newsome Bass, whose incredible protest of scaling a 30-foot pole to take down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol made her an icon of the movement. Bree’s actions led to the permanent removal of the Confederate flag from the state house. And she tells Trymaine that faith was the foundation of it all.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• Reconstructed: In Search of the Promised Land
• How Black families, torn apart during slavery, worked to find one another again

Editors’ note: This episode was originally published incorrectly naming the location of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing as Montgomery, Alabama. The correct location is Birmingham. The piece has been updated.

It’s been a month since an historic winter storm hit Jackson, Mississippi, leaving tens of thousands of residents without clean water, or without any water at all. Most of those residents were Black. Four weeks later, much of the capital city still has to boil water to drink. 

Eighty-two percent of the residents in Jackson are Black and nearly a third live in poverty. Over the past several decades, the city has not had enough money to fix its dilapidated water system.

State lawmakers, whose leadership has always been white,  are debating how to address the water crisis before the end of the legislative session in just a few weeks; historically, state leaders have insisted that Jackson’s water problems are the city’s fault, and the city’s to fix. 

Many residents, including Jackson’s mayor, say race and racism play a big part in the struggle over the decades-long water crisis in Jackson.  If the city were majority-white, they say, this problem would have been fixed a long time ago.

Host Trymaine Lee speaks with West Jackson resident Cassandra Welchlin, executive director of Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable and an advocate for Black women and girls in the state.

And Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba discusses the problem from his vantage point as the man in charge of the water crisis and the chief advocate for more money from the state to fix the crumbling system. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening

• A month without water: In Jackson, Mississippi, struggling residents fear next outage
• Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis brings to light long-standing problems in city
• Under The Surface, Part One: Jackson Residents Struggle From Neglected Water System

In episode 2 of “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” Gabriel Coakley builds on the freedom and success found in the first part of our series by going after what’s been denied to most Black families in America: financial freedom. Trymaine Lee traces Coakley’s legacy to understand how a surprising influx of money gave his family access to worlds and privileges denied to most African Americans at the turn of the Century through to today.

Trymaine is joined by: siblings John, Adele and Richard Flateau; cousins Desmond and Antoine Flateau; and professors Chris Myers Asch and Kellie Carter Jackson.

On August 31st, Marva Sadler stood outside the Whole Women’s Health abortion clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, and vowed to help as many people as she could before the end of the day. Along with a small staff, Sadler and a physician performed 67 abortions before midnight. The next day, the nation’s strictest abortion ban went into effect. 

The law, known as SB-8, bans nearly all abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically around the sixth week of pregnancy, before most people know they are carrying. SB-8 is facing multiple legal challenges, but its authors designed it to stand up to a challenge before the Supreme Court, by moving the enforcement from the state to private citizens, who can sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion procedure. 

So far, the bet has paid off. The Supreme Court let the law take effect in September, and while there’s been recent legal back and forth over the law, it’s still in effect today. In the past six weeks, many pregnant people have sought to get around the ban by crossing state lines or seeking abortion pills online.

On this episode of Into America, Marva Sadler, the clinical director for the Whole Women’s Health network, tells Trymaine Lee that this law will have greater consequences for Black people, who already face higher face higher rates of maternal mortality in Texas. 

Michele Goodwin, a law professor at UC Irvine and founding director for the university’s Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy, says the law, with its vigilante nature, is reminiscent of the fugitive slave acts of antebellum America.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: [[POD ONLY]]:

• The Texas Abortion Ban is History Revisited, by Michele Goodwin
• Into America: ‘My Body is a Monument’

According to a draft Supreme Court opinion obtained by Politico, the Supreme Court stands poised to overturn Roe v. Wade during its next session. If this happens, it’s estimated as many as 23 states will enact some type of abortion ban, some of which will go into effect almost immediately. And Black people could be hardest hit. 

Black women seek abortions at a higher rate than any other group. And that, coupled with the knowledge that infant and maternal mortality rates are higher for Black people, could create a dangerous situation for Black people forced to carry pregnancies to term. 

Last fall, Into America took a closer look at the disparate impact abortion restrictions would have in Texas, following the state’s passage of SB-8, which banned abortion after six weeks. In light of the news this week, we’re re-airing this episode as we consider all that’s at stake with this upcoming decision.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Viewing:

• NBC Exclusive: Abortion clinic at center of Mississippi case may move to N.M. if Roe is overturned
• For many Republicans, ending Roe is the first step, not the last
• Supreme Court confirms draft opinion on Roe v. Wade is real, will investigate source of leak

This week, President Biden outlined his commitment to addressing racial equity and righting historical wrongs. But Black journalists have been trying to sound the alarm on the consequences of racism and extremism for years. In predominantly white newsrooms, their calls were often met with skepticism and dismissiveness, and as a result, we’ve all paid the price. 

Journalist Farai Chideya has covered every presidential election since 1996. Her resume includes stints at CNN, ABC News, and FiveThirtyEight. She knows first-hand what it’s like to try to tell stories of racial animus, only to be silenced by white gatekeepers. In addition to being a journalist, Farai is also a media analyst. As a fellow with Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, she studied the lack of diversity in American newsrooms.

Farai recently started her own newsroom, serving as creator and host of Our Body Politic, a politics podcast about women of color. It’s produced in collaboration with public radio stations KCRW, KPCC, and KQED. She joins Trymaine Lee to discuss the ways in which institutionalized bias in mainstream media led to inadequate coverage of race under Trump, and the lessons journalists need to keep in mind during the Biden administration. 

Further Reading and Listening:

• Listen to Farai Chideya’s podcast Our Body Politic
• Biden signs executive actions on racial equity
• Into America: Into Please Stop Talking to Me About Race

More than ten years ago, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teen, was fatally shot in a gated neighborhood in Florida while on his way back to their home from a local convenience store. Martin's death -- and his shooter's acquittal -- would go on to spark a new generation of protests and global attention on police and citizen violence against Black people. 

In the wake of this renewed energy around anti-Black racism, a coalition of racial justice organizations like The Black Lives Matter Network, Dream Defenders, and Black Youth Project sprouted all over the country, signaling a new era of Black organizing. These groups helped lay down the groundwork for the massive and enduring protests that erupted in Ferguson, Mo., in the days and months after Michael Brown Jr., an unarmed Black teenager, was killed by a white police officer on August 9, 2014. 

Within this larger movement for Black lives, the fathers of countless slain Black boys rose up to lead the cause. On this episode of Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s dad, along with Michael Brown Sr., and Jacob Blake Sr. about the weight of Black fatherhood amid a global fight for Black life.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening: 

• Reconstructed: The Book of Trayvon
• After George Floyd
• Can You Hear Us Now: Juneteenth

Ed Forchion, also known as NJWeedman, was a casualty of the War on Drugs, incarcerated on weed charges at the end of the 1990s. Across the country, Black people were disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs, and in New Jersey, the ACLU found that even in the last decade, if you’re Black you’re 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for weed. 

But now, voters have opted to legalize recreational marijuana in the state. And the move raises the question of whether and how Black people will benefit from this change. 

Since 2015, Ed has operated a black market weed shop directly across from City Hall in Trenton. He opened the shop to protest to what he saw as unjust marijuana laws. And now, even though he could apply for a legal license, he doesn’t have faith in the state to equitably give access to potential Black sellers. 

Dianna Houenou is hoping to change Ed’s mind. She’s the chair of New Jersey’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission.The CRCis responsible for deciding rules for recreational use, which businesses and how businesses will get approved, and how social equity will play into the process. 

Racial and social equity was initially not part of the New Jersey legalization plan, but activists pushed for it, which led to an excise fee that will go towards communities disproportionality affected by the War on Drugs. The Commission is slated to announce how this will all work in August. While there is some excitement around the push for social equity, states like California and Illinois have proved that these social equity programs might be more about promises than actual help for Black sellers.

Trymaine Lee heads to the Garden State to find out whether New Jersey will be able to effectively prioritize social equity as marijuana becomes legal. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Clarence Thomas says federal laws against marijuana may no longer be necessary
• Inside one woman's effort to normalize marijuana in homes and get equity 'baked into the laws'

Emmett Till’s lynching is credited as the spark that set off the Civil Rights Movement. In 1955, the 14-year-old boy was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped and murdered for whistling at a white woman. Days later his bloated body was dragged out of the Tallahatchie River and sent home to his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, in Chicago. When pictures of his mutilated face were published around the country, it shocked the national consciousness, bringing people off the sidelines and into the fight to recognize Black Americans’ basic humanity.

Congress first considered antilynching legislation at the turn of the twentieth century. On January 20th, 1900, Representative George Henry White of North Carolina, the only Black member of Congress at the time, introduced a bill that would have subjected people involved in mob violence to the potential of capital punishment. Since then, antilynching legislation has been introduced in Congress more than 200 times. It had failed every time. 

That changed last week. At the end of March, President Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law, making lynching a federal hate crime. Present at the ceremony was Emmett Till’s cousin, Rev. Wheeler Parker. Rev. Parker travelled from Chicago to Mississippi with Emmett Till in 1955, and he is the last living relative to have witnessed the boy’s kidnapping. This week on Into America, he shares his story.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading / Listening / Viewing:

• Reconstructed: The Book of Trayvon
• Rev. Sharpton, Ben Crump, and the Pursuit of Justice
• The Daughters of Malcolm and Martin

Tracy McMillan’s dad spent most of her life in prison, getting out for the last time when she was in her 40s. But for all the movies and shows about prison, she hadn’t seen her experience portrayed on screen in a way that resonated with her. 

So, as a successful television writer and author, she decided to write it herself — for her and the millions of others who grew up with a parent behind bars. After years of work, Tracy’s story became Hulu’s new hit show UnPrisoned. 

It’s a funny and heartfelt take on what happens when a father who has spent decades in prison, played by Delroy Lindo, comes to live with his adult daughter, played by Kerry Washington. 

This week, Trymaine sits down with Tracy and Delroy, for an eye-opening conversation about their experiences from childhood, their relationship with their fathers, and the healing power of art.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Watch the trailer for UnPrisoned
• The Re-Freshed Prince of Bel Air
• Kerry Washington talks ‘Unprisoned,’ writing a memoir

Jerry Craft’s graphic novel New Kid has won multiple awards, made the New York Times Best Sellers List, and is beloved by children across the country.But this year, New Kid made headlines for a different reason when a Texas school district pulled the book from its shelves after a white parent complained that it promoted Critical Race Theory and Marxism.  

Craft was surprised. The story is based on his own experiences as a young Black kid attending a mostly white private school in New York City. “I had to Google Critical Race Theory and try to find out how I was, how I was teaching it,” he tells Into America. 

New Kid was born in part because Craft felt that stories about Black kids tend to dwell on trauma instead of normal life. "I just wanted to have kids where the biggest dilemma in their life is if they wanted to play PlayStation or Xbox, or what movie they wanted to go see, you know, as opposed to always having the weight of the world,” he says. “Those are important stories, but I think we have to give kids things to aspire to and to dream."

The school district reinstated New Kid after a review, but the ordeal raised old questions about what kind of books are challenged in schools, and who gets to decide what is appropriate for children. 

Host Trymaine Lee’s 9-year-old daughter Nola read New Kid for her summer reading, and she loved it. Trymaine brings her on the show to talk about the book and representation in children’s literature.

“I mean, obviously, if you grow up in a world where you see yourself, that might tell you like, I can't do this, I'm not able to do this, or I'm not capable of this,” she tells her dad. “So I think that in general, just seeing people that look like you and representation as a whole is very important.”

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Please follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Author of 'Gender Queer,' one of most-banned books in U.S., addresses controversy
• Check out Nola Lee on last year’s holiday episode of Into America: Black Toys R Us

The entertainment industry and its TV and film writers can’t get on the same page. For the first time in over a decade, the Writers Guild of America is on strike. Shows like Saturday Night Live have already stopped production, with more to come as the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers try to reach a labor agreement.

As networks and film studios continue make record-high profits, writers are fighting for livable wages and fair compensation in the streaming era. And for the Black writers and the community at large, there’s much more at stake.

For decades, Black writers were shut out of writers’ rooms, unable to tell their own stories. As the industry changed, these scribes were only relegated to write comedy. Today, just a handful have made it to the top of the television hierarchy as showrunners. 

Anthony Sparks, a 20-year industry veteran told Trymaine Lee that for him, the strike is about making sure writing can continue to be a viable career path for people like him. Because if the industry doesn’t change, Black writers could get squeezed out, and Black audiences risk losing representation, or worse – having outsiders control it.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• The Re-Freshed Prince of Bel-Air
• Comedian Cristela Alonzo explains why WGA writers are on strike
• WGA Says Strike Is Costing California’s Economy $30 Million A Day

Lance Stevens was standing outside his home in his calm Indianapolis neighborhood with his mother, Kim Tillman, as she dropped off the two young grandkids from a weekend at her house, when a stranger with a gun changed their lives in an instant.  

Lance was shot in the leg and another bullet grazed the side of his head, while his mother received the brunt of the gunfire: she was shot in the chest and armpit, and her arm and cheekbone were shattered. 

After decades of decline, gun violence has spiked since the pandemic. Experts told Into America that in Indianapolis, the demographics of victims are shifting, and survivors are becoming more likely to be older people and women, like Kim Tillman. It’s also creeping into neighborhoods like Northwest Indianapolis that are usually untouched. 

Most of the nation’s attention on gun violence is focused on mass shootings and homicides, but the vast majority of people who are shot survive. And like Kim and Lance, who were among the nearly 750 Indianapolis residents who were wounded by gun violence in 2021, these survivors not only must heal their physical wounds, but face a number of challenges and unexpected hurdles – from healthcare costs, damage to property, and navigating victim compensation funds – as the family tries to heal.

A little over a year later after the shooting, host Trymaine Lee visited Lance and his wife Sophia Stevens, and grandma Kim Tillman at the Stevens’ home in Indianapolis, to talk about recovery, acceptance, and moving forward after tragedy.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening: 

• Space to Grieve
• Hate and Heartbreak in Buffalo

Trymaine Lee reflects on the direction of hip-hop over the last decade: through the Trump and Biden administrations, the rise of Black Lives Matter, and the spread of COVID-19. He surveys the state of the culture in 2023, 50 years after the birth of the artform; and he looks ahead to what the next 50 years could hold. 

Plus, guests from our “Street Disciples” series tell us how their lives have been shaped by half a century of politics, power, and the rise of hip-hop. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

Editors’ Note: an earlier version contained an incorrect time period for the death of Michael Stewart. The story has been updated.

For More: 

• Street Disciples: The Concrete Jungle
• Street Disciples: Broken Glass Everywhere
• Street Disciples: America’s Most Wanted
• Street Disciples: If I Ruled the World

Midterm elections are critical junctures for Black America, moments in time that have transformed the wellbeing of the community — for better or worse.

In 1962, the Democrats’ strong showing helped pave the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Backlash to President Clinton brought the Republican Revolution of 1994, which led to the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. And in 2010, President Obama lost control of Congress, essentially halting major legislative progress for the rest of his presidency. 

On this episode of Into America, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, recounts what it was like being elected in 1994, and surviving the red wave of 2010 — two elections she says had disastrous consequences for her Black constituents. 

And according to Ted Johnson, an expert in the Black electorate at the Brennan Center for Justice, 2022 is shaping up to be another crucial year. Columbia University professor Fredrick Harris put it this way: “History does not repeat itself,” he told us, “but it sure does rhyme.”

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More:

• NBC: Plan Your Vote 2022 Midterm Elections
• The Power of the Black Vote: Creating a New South
• The Gen Z Midterm Test

“Freaknik in many ways is what Woodstock was for white people,” explains Dr. Maurice Hobson. Hobson is an historian at Georgia State University and former Freaknik attendee. 

Freaknik was a legendary street party that started in Atlanta back in the early 80s. For more than 15 years, young Black people from all around the country flooded the parks and streets of Atlanta every third weekend in April. There was dancing in the middle of the streets, step shows, and concerts with rap stars like Outkast, Goodie Mob and Uncle Luke.

“It was the perfect storm. You know, it could not happen anywhere else. It had to happen in Atlanta,” rap legend Uncle Luke tells Trymaine Lee. At one point, Luke was crowned “King of Freaknik.”

This week, Into America explores the rise and fall of the greatest block party America has ever seen, and the impact that Freaknik still has on Atlanta and Black youth culture today, told by the people who lived it, including Uncle Luke, Maurice Hobson, radio host Kenny Burns, and Freaknik co-founder Sharon Toomer.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening: 

• Big Daddy Kane’s Lyrical Legacy
• Black Joy in the Summertime

Critical Race Theory. It feels like all of a sudden, this term is just everywhere. 

White parents are protesting Critical Race Theory, falsely claiming it’s being used in social studies and anti-racist trainings to teach their children to hate themselves. Republican-led states across the country are introducing legislation to ban it from being taught in public schools. Fox News mentioned the term almost 1,300 times from March to mid-June. 

But here’s the thing: almost everything these people are saying about Critical Race Theory is wrong. It’s not taught in K through 12 schools, it doesn’t say that people are inherently racist due to their genetics, and it’s not a “Marxist doctrine” that is “being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families,” as former President Donald Trump claimed last year. 

Critical Race Theory is a way to study and scrutinize the intersection of race and law, that is primarily taught in law school. It’s a way of understanding how laws have embedded race and racism into our country.

It might be easy to dismiss this as just another battle in the right-wing culture war. But Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, a co-founder of the theory, says the conservative uproar is much more alarming that that. 

“When we start dictating what can be taught, what can be said and what it is, we are well, well, down the road towards an authoritarian regime,” she tells host Trymaine Lee. 

Professor Crenshaw explains the origins of Critical Race Theory, and how this backlash mirrors the ugliest parts of America’s racial past.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Critical race theory battle invades school boards — with help from conservative groups
• GOP's 'critical race theory' astroturfing is the new tea party

After George Floyd’s murder, police departments across the country faced criticisms of systemic bias and a failure to reflect the communities they patrol and so they worked to enact reforms. But diversifying efforts have been underway for years inside the Miami Police Department. Roughly a quarter of all officers in Miami PD are Black, which is a much greater percentage than the city’s overall Black population. Over the past year, Black officers have been pushing for even more reform within the department, from the top down. 

One of those officers is Sergeant Stanley Jean-Poix, President of the Miami Community Police Benevolent Association, the second oldest Black police union in the country. Jean-Poix joined the force over 20 years ago with the goal of enacting change from within the department. He led a two-year fight against the former police chief Jorge Colina, alleging he oversaw a department that treated Black officers unfairly, and let racist cops slide. Colina resigned last year.

But can true change come from the inside? James Valsaint, a Miami-based artist and activist, doesn’t think so. Valsaint was born in Little Haiti, one of the neighborhoods that Sgt. Jean-Poix patrols. His interactions with the police growing up were not positive, whether the officer was Black or white. Valsaint got active following the killing of Trayvon Martin; he joined the Dream Defenders, who fought against Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, and later helped to organize actions in Miami following George Floyd’s murder. For Valsaint, defunding the police is just the first step on the long march to police abolition.

For these two men from Miami, the goal of reducing police violence against Black Americans is shared, but they see different paths forward. Trymaine sits down with Sgt. Jean-Poix and Valsaint for a frank and challenging conversation on the progress and limitations of police reform.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• A look at the racial makeup of law enforcement agencies in South Florida
• Miami Black police association claims racism in department

It’s been almost ten years since the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing Trayvon Martin, sparked the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in 2013. A year later, the police killing of Michael Brown turned the hashtag into a movement. Then in 2020, the world witnessed the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter exploded into a global phenomenon. 

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest, and as activists took center stage, people donated millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. But it’s been a turbulent ride. In 2021, when it was announced that the foundation had received $90 million in funding, many local BLM chapters and families of victims of police violence, started calling for more support and financial transparency. And a recent New York Magazine article unveiled that the foundation spent $6 million on a Los Angeles home which triggered new accusations of mishandling of funds. 

This week on Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Patrisse Cullors, one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the former executive director of the BLM Global Network Foundation. After the national foundation received an influx of money, Cullors became the face of the foundation. Now she’s under fire from right-wing media, as well as other movement leaders, who are questioning her leadership and financial decisions. Cullors admits that she has made some mistakes, but she maintains that she has done nothing wrong. So she’s sitting down with Into America to talk about what accountability means to her, and how she plans to move forward with the lessons she’s learned.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Former BLM foundation leader denies allegations of money mishandling
• BLM’s Patrisse Cullors to step down from movement foundation

Black women are three times more likely to suffer from pregnancy and childbirth complications than white women. And when faced with a health scare, terminating a pregnancy has been a way for doctors to save the life of the mother.

But under strict new limits on abortion, doctors are often forced to hold off on critical care, like in Florida, where a 15-week ban meant that Anya Cook almost died after she began experiencing something called PPROM, which can cause infection and hemorrhaging. 

Months after that incident, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill aimed to shorten the state’s ban to just 6 weeks, potentially putting more lives in the balance. 

On Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Anya, as well as OBGYN Dr. Zsakeba Henderson, to learn how abortion limits are disproportionately affecting Black mothers nearly one year since Roe was overturned.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Two women were denied medical care due to Florida's abortion ban
• DeSantis quietly signs extreme six-week abortion ban into law
• Inside a Texas Abortion Clinic

As climate change fuels an increase in natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and extreme heatwaves, the threat is not evenly distributed. Black Americans are more likely to live in areas that are more flood-prone, hotter, and have worse air quality. They’re also less likely to have access to life-saving measures like air conditioning. 

And even though President Joe Biden’s new $369 billion climate agenda has passed the senate after Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema finally got on board, the United States has done little to address the climate crisis in recent decades, especially as Republicans continue to either deny that climate change exists, or refuse to take action. 

Mary Annaïse Heglar, a writer and co-host of the climate podcast Hot Take, argues that this inaction is rooted in racism. This week on Into America, Heglar and host Trymaine Lee discuss the links between climate change and white supremacy. They also dig into a dangerous ideology that is growing in popularity on the far-right called eco-fascism, where adherents believe that the only way to solve climate change is to stop immigration, and even kill Black and brown people. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Louisiana's Last Black Oystermen
• Into Dirty Air
• Climate Denial’s Racist Roots

100 years ago this week, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma experienced one of the worst incidents of racial violence in this country’s history when a white mob laid siege to the prosperous Greenwood district. Greenwood was known as “Black Wall Street,” a nickname given by Booker T. Washington, for the number of wealthy Black families and Black owned businesses.

In less than 48 hours, from May 31 to June 1, 1921, the community was destroyed. Death tolls are disputed, but 300 Black people are believed to have been killed. Thousands were left homeless, and generations later, families are still struggling to recover their lost wealth. There were $1.8 million in property loss claims at the time, and some experts estimate that in today’s dollars, the white mob decimated $200 million of Black property.

Trymaine Lee travels to Tulsa to meet the Bagbys, whose business in the Greenwood district was destroyed and the Eatons, whose business was miraculously left standing. Through their stories, Trymaine traces the connection between inherited property and wealth, and explores how the massacre and subsequent policies have maintained the racial wealth gap over the last century.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening:

• Into America teamed up with the NBC News digital documentary unit to tell more of these stories from the massacre.  Check out our documentary “Blood on Black Wall Street: The Legacy of the Tulsa Massacre.”
• 107-year-old survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre calls on U.S. to acknowledge 1921 event
• Into America: American Coup

In the final installment of Harlem on My Mind, Trymaine Lee learns about the legacy of playwright Abram Hill, who used his work to center Black characters, Black audiences, and Black communities unapologetically.

Abram Hill co-founded the American Negro Theater in 1940, operating a small 150-seat theater from the basement of Harlem’s Schomburg Center. The American Negro Theater, also known as the ANT, would become a launch pad for stars like Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, even as Hill’s name was largely lost to history.

Trymaine tours the Schomburg Center with chief of staff Kevin Matthews, and sits down with Dr. Koritha Mitchell, an associate English professor at Ohio State University, to better understand Abram Hill and the ANT’s rise and fall.

And we learn about the legacy Hill leaves behind. In the 1960s, the New Heritage Theater Group grew from the foundation of the ANT and has been going strong since. Voza Rivers is the group’s executive producer. Trymaine talks with him, as well as actor Anthony Goss, who appeared in a 2017 re-production of Hill’s hit play On Strivers’ Row. Rivers and Goss, two men forty years apart, describe how Hill’s commitment to community continues to resonate across generations.

We also hear from Abram Hill, in his own words, thanks to audio recordings from Schomburg Center archives and the Hatch Billops Estate, as well as the Works Progress Administration Oral History collection at George Mason University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Listening:

• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence
• Harlem on My Mind: Arturo Schomburg
• Harlem on My Mind: Jessie Redmon Fauset

For the better part of a decade Kanye West and Kim Kardashian were one of the most influential couples in pop culture, living their private lives in the public eye. And now that the pair is officially split, they continue to grab headlines.

When Kim filed for divorce in February of last year, things at first seemed amicable – in August the couple recreated their wedding on stage at one of Kanye’s concerts, and they continue to share parenting responsibilities for their four children. But Kanye wasn’t ready to let go, and over the last year, his efforts to win Kim back have become increasingly aggressive. When she started dating SNL star Pete Davidson, Kanye’s public displays took on a more menacing tone: he made a music video featuring an animation of himself decapitating the comedian and claimed that he was using art to work through the trauma of his breakup.

Kanye has been very vocal about his struggles with mental health, sharing his diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder with the world. His current public displays look to many like the hallmark signs of a manic episode, where a person feels an unnaturally high energy level, excitement, and euphoria for a prolonged period. And many say his behavior toward Kim appears to bullying and harassing, bordering on abuse. (Although to be clear, the majority of people with mental health issues are not violent, and we want to be careful not to equate mental illness with violent or threatening behavior; and there is no evidence that Kanye has been violent.)

But the media conversations around Kim and Kanye, and around Kanye’s mental health, too often take on a tone of tabloid gossip, rather than tackling the tougher issues of mental health, support, and accountability that their story highlights.

This week on Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with two Black mental health professionals about Kanye’s struggles and mental health in the Black community. Dr. Maia Hoskin is a college professor, activist and writer who holds a Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Clinical Supervision. Last month she published a Medium article arguing that Black women shouldn’t be expected to “save” or “fix” Kanye’s mental health issues. Rwenshaun Miller is a therapist, speaker and award-winning social entrepreneur. His company Eustress, Inc. is focused on raising mental health awareness in the Black community.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Please follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening:

• A Shape-Up and a Check-In
• A Word from the Nap Bishop

In February 2022, Into America launched “Reconstructed,” a series about the legacy of Reconstruction.

The story begins in the late 1860s, as the newly freed became citizens under the law and Black men gained the right to vote. Black Americans across the South suddenly had the power to exert control over their own lives. In the face of horrific violence from their white neighbors, Black people voted in liberal governments across the South, elevating hundreds of their own to places of political power. 

Perhaps no one exemplifies this more than the late Congressman Robert Smalls. As his great-great-grandson Michael Boulware Moore tells Trymaine Lee, Smalls’ daring escape from slavery and wartime actions made him a hero. Then, like hundreds of newly freed Black Americans, he decided to get involved in politics in his hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina. 

And more than a century later, we still see the impact of this brief time of Black political power, through people like the current Democratic National Committee chair and South Carolina native Jaime Harrison, who tells Trymaine how today’s 20th-Century fight for voting rights is a continuation of the Reconstruction era. 

(Original release date: February 3, 2022)

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

For more: 

• Reconstructed: In Search of the Promised Land
• Reconstructed: Keep the Faith, Baby
• Reconstructed: The Book of Trayvon

This week, the US Supreme Court struck down the use of Affirmative Action in higher education, in one of the most widely watched cases of the summer. 

As part of his television reporting, Trymaine Lee had a conversation with professor Cara McClellan of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school in the lead up to the decision. They talked about the history of this policy, as well as the stakes of losing it. And we wanted to share the conversation with you here on the pod as well.  

For more analysis of the Supreme Court decision, check out MSNBC. And keep your eyes on your podcast feeds for more from us in the coming weeks. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Follow MSNBC’s Legal Coverage
• Know Your History
• Ebony & Ivy

New Orleans’s Tremé neighborhood is one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in America, and at the heart of that wasClaiborne Avenue. In the 1960s, construction of the I-10 highway cut through the community. 

But now, thanks to funding from the recent infrastructure bill, community residents might have the resources to heal. Proposals for the Claiborne Expressway have included everything from tearing down the freeway completely, to taking the federal grant funding and investing it into the community. 

Raynard Sanders a lifelong New Orleanian and the Executive Director of the Claiborne History Project. He says the most important thing is that the community have a say in what happens next. On this bonus episode of Into America, he talks to host Trymaine Lee about the history of the Tremé neighborhood, and the fight to save it.  

This conversation is part of an MSNBC town hall on racial equity and healing, hosted by Trymaine Lee, Joy Reid, and Chris Hayes, and sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

Marvel’s Black Panther has always been more than a superhero franchise. Since the first film came out in 2018, the characters and their utopian home, the fictional African nation of Wakanda, have become ingrained in popular culture. “Wakanda forever” became more than a line from a movie — it transformed into shorthand for Black pride and excellence.

Now, the long-awaited sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is once again redefining the genre. 

Filmed after the death of star Chadwick Boseman, who had played King T’Challa aka the Black Panther, director Ryan Coogler decided the movie would tackle the tragedy head on, and show a nation in mourning.

This week on Into America, Trymaine Lee sits down with Kelley Carter, a reporter for ESPN’s Andscape, to talk about why the franchise resonates so deeply, and how the sequel deals with grief and the legacy of the Black Panther. Trymaine also speaks to author Eve L. Ewing, who writes Marvel’s Ironheart comic series, about the importance of Black superheroes.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More: 

• (Not) Chasing Oscar Gold
• The Sun Rises in the East

It’s been one year since Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, assuming office in the middle of a deadly pandemic, and the most significant push for racial justice the country has seen since the Civil Rights era.Amidst the social polarization promoted by former president Donald Trump, Biden inherited a House of Representatives where his party holds a razor-thin majority, and an evenly divided Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris provides Democrats with the tie-breaking vote.

Biden’s election win, as well as his party’s control of Congress, would not have been possible withoutBlack voters. After a late entry into the 2020 race, and a poor showing in early contests,61 percent of Black Democrats in South Carolina chose Biden in their state’s primary, breathing life into his nascent campaign. In the general election, Blacks in urban centers helped Biden secure wins in key swing states. And in Georgia that year, record turnout and Black voters helped Biden win the state’s Electoral College votes and send two Democrats to the Senate, giving the president’s party control of the chamber.

In his victory speech back in November of 2020, Biden recognized the debt that he and his party owed to the Black voters who put them in power, pledging to have the community’s back. But progress on key legislation has been slow. Both the George Floyd Justice in Policing  Act and theEmmett Till Anti-Lynching Act are stalled in the Senate. And the same goes for the party’s efforts at voting rights legislation.

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee talks with NBC News Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor about how Joe Biden’s pledge to the Black community is holding up one year into his administration, and what things look like moving forward.

Into America was nominated for a 2022 NAACP Image Award! We’re finalists in the Outstanding News and Information Podcast category, and we need your vote. Go to vote.naacpimageawards.net to cast your ballot today.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening:

• Into America: I Have Your Back
• Into America: Rev. Sharpton, Ben Crump, and the Pursuit of Justice

When Tricia Hersey was in seminary school, she was exhausted. On top of classes and homework, she had a job and a child. She often wouldn’t get to sleep until 2am, and her grades were suffering. Then, one day, as she was researching histories of enslaved people and Black liberation, she had an idea: instead of running herself into the ground, what if she took a nap instead? 

That decision turned into a practice of rest in her own life, and then Tricia started sharing it with her community. Soon, her seminary background and her work on rest melded together and in 2016, Tricia founded the Nap Ministry, and became the Nap Bishop. 

This week on Into America, Tricia tells Trymaine Lee about how she is helping Black people renounce white supremacist and capitalist ideas of work and reclaim rest as radical resistance. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• The Great Resignation: Why millions of workers are quitting
• The Nap Ministry
• Listen to a musical medication by Tricia Hersey

Although Harvard is one of the Blackest Ivy League schools, Black students still make up just 11 percent of the student body. Many Black students at Harvard experience a level of culture shock when they first arrive to such a historically white space. There’s the whiteness of the university today, but also the institution’s connection to slavery and white supremacy. 

This culture shock can be doubled for Black students who trace their lineage to enslaved people in this country, often called Generational African Americans at Harvard.Even though the university has started an initiative to address and understand its ties to slavery, and has made increasing diversity on campus a priority for decades, it’s estimated that less than a third of Black students at Harvard are Generational African Americans. 

But in its publicly released demographics, Harvard doesn’t distinguish between the different kinds of Blackness within the diaspora. And Black students say that’s an issue. 

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with three studentsfrom the African diaspora on campus: Mariah Norman, a first year who is Generational African American, Ife Adedokun, a first year whose parents immigrated from Nigeria, and Kimani Panthier, a second year whose parents immigrated from Jamaica. 

The group talks about what it’s like to be Black at Harvard,and the nuances of Black identity within the diaspora on campus. They tell Trymaine how the university could better support them, and how they find community from each other. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening:

• Woman sues Harvard claiming it is exploiting images of her 19th-century slave ancestors
• Into America: Boston is Blacker Than You Think

When Marsha Coleman-Adebayo heard a rumor that members of her church might be buried under a parking lot for a high-rise apartment building, she couldn’t believe it. This small plot of land in the wealthy, white suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, had once been part of the Black community that flourished here after emancipation, and was now dwindling due to development and gentrification. 

The land was now worth tens of millions of dollars, and developers were eyeing it for further construction. So Marsha became part of a years-long fight between the county and former residents of River Road, the once-thriving Black community within Bethesda, to save and memorialize the Moses Macedonia African Cemetery.

This week, Trymaine travels to River Road to meet with Marsha and Harvey Mathews, a descendant of the community who can still remember what once was. They visit the site of the former cemetery and the tiny church fighting to preserve the memory of their ancestors.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For More: 

• Blood on Black Wall Street: Excavating the Past
• Life, Loss, and Libations 

Saturday marks Juneteenth, when the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally got word of their freedom in 1865. This came two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, which despite popular opinion did not automatically free every enslaved person. Washington D.C. was among the first cities to end slavery, doing so in April of 1862, months before President Abraham Lincoln’s historic speech. But many D.C. residents argue full democracy and freedom is still out of reach.  

Saturday marks Juneteenth, when the last enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally got word of their freedom in 1865. This came two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, signed into law this week by President Joe Biden. 

In Washington D.C., slaveryactually came to an end before federal emancipation. But today, many D.C. residents argue full democracy and freedom is still out of reach. 

The city is nowhome to 700,000 people, nearly half of whom are Black. But despite living within arms’ reach of the halls of power, residents of the so-called Chocolate City do not have a voting representative in the House or the Senate. That’s because D.C. is not a state.

For years, activists have beenpushing for statehood; some hope to name it the Douglass Commonwealth, after abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In April, the House of Representatives approved HR-51, which if approved by the Senate, would make D.C. the 51st state. With the Senate Homeland Security Committee set to hold a hearing on D.C. statehood next week, statehood activists say they are closer than ever to achieving their goal. Democrats, including President Biden, are on board. However, with strong GOP opposition, the outcome is anything but certain. 

George Derek Musgrove, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County history professor, explains that statehood matters because D.C.’s current status means it’s controlled by Congress. Residents can elect a mayor and city council, but Congress oversees the city’s budget and can block laws it disapproves of. Residents can’t dictate their own affairs.  

One activist working to change this is 22-year-oldJamal Holtz, who grew up in southeast D.C. He’s one of the co-founders of 51 for 51, agroup of young people fighting for statehood. People often refer to him D.C.’s “future governor.” One of the people he looks up to is 71-year-old Anise Jenkins. Anise is the founder of Stand Up! for Democracy in DC (Free DC). She’s been fighting for D.C. statehood since the 1990s – before Jamal was born. Anise has been arrested nine times as she’s protested for statehood, and she’s excited to see Jamal’s generation carrying on the fight. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com. 

Further Reading and Listening:

• Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital
• Manchin opposes D.C. statehood, dealing a blow to Democratic priority
• Flag makers in the spotlight as Congress gets ready to discuss Washington, D.C., statehood

Into America was nominated for a 2022 NAACP Image Award! We’re finalists in the Outstanding News and Information Podcast category, and we need your vote. Go to vote.naacpimageawards.net to cast your ballot today.

In February 2021, Into America launched Harlem on My Mind, a series that followed four figures from the Harlem Renaissance who defined Blackness for themselves and what it means to be Black in America today.

The story began in December 2020, when host Trymaine Lee acquired something he coveted for years: a numbered print titled Schomburg Library by American icon Jacob Lawrence. The print came with a handwritten dedication to a man named Abram Hill. Who was Abram Hill? How did he know Jacob Lawrence? Did their paths cross at the famed Schomburg Library?

What followed was a journey of discovery, through conversations with friends, historians and experts, to understand the interconnected lives of Black creators in and around the Harlem Renaissance. And it started with Jacob Lawrence, a child of the Great Migration who was nurtured by the great artists and ideas of the period. Two women who knew Lawrence well, art historian Dr. Leslie King-Hammond and artist Barbara Earl Thomas, reflected on his life, death and contributions to Black culture.

As Into America gears up for our 2022 Black History series, Reconstructed – a look at the legacy of the Reconstruction era –we wanted to revisit Harlem on My Mind and share it with you again. 

Special thanks to the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 

(Original release date: February 4, 2021)

Further Listening:

• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence
• Harlem on My Mind: Arturo Schomburg
• Harlem on My Mind: Jessie Redmon Fauset
• Harlem on My Mind: Abram Hill

Dewey Bozella was 18 years old when he was arrested for murder. It was a terrible crime: an elderly woman had been beaten and suffocated in her home in Poughkeepsie, New York. But Dewey had nothing to do with it. 

Five years later, Dewey was convicted on flimsy, circumstantial evidence, and became one of the estimated tens of thousands of innocent people stuck in prison for crimes they did not commit.Black people are overrepresented in that group: they are seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than whites. 

Before he was locked up, Dewey had taken up boxing. And while incarcerated at Sing Sing Prison, Dewey turned back to the sport he loved, something he says helped save his life. He became the prison's light heavyweight boxing champion, and after being released in 2009, he began mentoring young people and teaching them to box. 

He didn’t give up on his dreams of boxing, and two years after his release, Dewey competed in his first professional fight, at 52 years old. Trymaine Lee sits down with Dewey to talk about his fight to prove his innocence and to live out his dreams, and the lessons he learned along the way.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening:

• Exonerated of murder, boxer makes his debut at 52
• 26 Years: The Dewey Bozella Story (ESPN 30 for 30 documentary)

With its luxury resorts and golf courses, Hilton Head, South Carolina, is a popular vacation hotspot. But the island is also home to the Gullah Geechee; descendants of formerly enslaved West Africans who have owned land on the island since their ancestors were freed. 

However, every year Gullah Geechee families are in danger of losing their land to investors at Beaufort County's tax auction. If a family falls behind on its property taxes, the land goes up for auction; and that can happen for as little as a few-hundred dollars in back-taxes. 

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Marine Corp veteran Joseph Walters Jr, who has come close to losing his land two years in a row. And Trymaine talks with members of the Gullah Geechee community who are trying to stop this cycle: Marshview Community Organic Farms owner Sará Reynolds Green, and Pan African Family Empowerment & Land Preservation Network founder Theresa White. Green and White are both part of a network of Gullah advocates raising awareness (and funds) to help people hold onto their land, and the culture that comes with it. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Into America: Justice for Black Farmers
• Into America: Blood on Black Wall Street, What Was Stolen

As Russian forces advanced from the east during the war in Ukraine, they faced unexpectedly fierce opposition from the Ukrainian military and civilian population. And as fighting intensified, many in its path fled west. 

But as people fled, not everyone was the given the same opportunity to seek refuge. In the middle of a war zone anti-Black racism reared its ugly head, with reports of people from the African diaspora facing racist treatment at the Ukrainian border. In the eastern city of Sumy, home to a large contingent of international students, Black folks were beaten off of trains and buses fleeing the violence to make way for white Ukrainian citizens. 

This week on Into America, we speak with Eniola Oladiti, a Black medical student from Ireland, who fled Sumy while that city was under siege. And host Trymaine Lee speaks with Kimberly St. Julian Varnon, an expert on race in the former Soviet Union, about the unique experience of being Black in this part of the world. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Black immigrants chose Ukraine for quality of life, education. War leaves them fearful.
• Open the door or we die': Africans report racism and hostility trying to flee Ukraine
• NBC News Special Report - Inside Ukraine

During the Democratic primary of 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden made a historic pledge: given the opportunity, he would nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. With the announcement of Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement earlier this year, President Biden had an opportunity to fulfill that pledge. And he delivered. After weeks of speculation in the media, and comments from the right, Biden announced Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his pick. 

Before a candidate was even named, members of the right began crying foul, pre-judging the eventual nominee as an “affirmative action” pick. They contended that, because Biden was pledging to nominate a Black woman, he was excluding more qualified candidates. But these attacks glossed over historical context: in the court’s 232-year history, there have been a total of 115 justices to serve. 108 of those justices have been white men – it's been a case of affirmative action for white men, by white men. And past heroes of the right, like Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan have made similar pledges about appointing women to the court without any pushback from those same corners.

While Biden kept his word with nominating Judge Jackson to the Court, it was never a sure bet. From the time he took office, Biden faced organized pressure from a dynamic group of Black women aiming to make the highest court in the land more closely resemble the face of America. April Reign is a trained lawyer and the creator of the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag. She, Kim Tignor, and two other Black women lawyers created the organization Sista SCOTUS and the campaign #SheWillRise to keep pressure on in Washington for this historic first.

This week, host Trymaine Lee talks with Reign and Tignor about their campaign.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Listening: 

• Amy Coney Barrett's Record on Race
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ACLU Years

100 years ago this week, a white mob burned down Tulsa's Greenwood District, a bustling business district. For decades, the government refused to acknowledge the Tulsa Race Massacre ever happened.

Only now, 100 years later, is an effort is underway to identify mass graves in Tulsa. Trymaine Lee visits a mass grave site with Kavin Ross, a local journalist, activist, and descendent of victims of the massacre. 

But even as Black Tulsa has fought to unearth the truth and recover the remains of their ancestors, those efforts have been met with resistance and silence from many white Tulsans.

Ruth Sigler Avery is one of the few white Tulsans who did not remain silent, after witnessing some of the horrific aftermath of the massacre as a child. Ruth dedicated her life to documenting the massacre, but even members of her own family did not believe her story. Trymaine speaks to Ruth’s daughter, Joy Avery, about the shame and guilt that has kept this history buried in white families for so long.

At All Souls Unitarian, a historically white church in Tulsa, Reverend Marlin Lavanhar is working to get his congregation to wrestle with its role in the massacre. Many white members, including those who are descended from people involved, have chosen to leave the church rather than confront the past. Young Tulsa residents, like Bailey McBride, are ready and willing to acknowledge what happened and help take responsibility for the past. But even the most informed white Tulsans are still learning things they didn’t know about their connections to the massacre.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Blood on Black Wall Street: What Was Stolen
• Blood on Black Wall Street: The Legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre
• Tulsa Race Massacre, 100 years later: Why it happened and why it's still relevant today

Before he was Big Daddy Kane, the legendary MC who broke out big in the late 80s, he was just Antonio Hardy, the kid from Brooklyn who heard something new coming out of the turntables at the block party. It was the sound of hip-hop coming of age, and Kane was coming up with it. Soon, he’d be writing his own rhymes and traveling to other boroughs to battle their best MCs.

Big Daddy Kane would go on to become one of the most versatile rappers of his day, with hits like “Ain’t No Half-Steppin,’” and “Smooth Operator.” He came up alongside the late great Biz Markie, and joined up with Marley Marl and the Juice Crew, establishing himself as one of the pioneers of the golden age of hip-hop.

As we approach the 2022 summer season, we want to revisit our conversation with Big Daddy Kane. Trymaine Lee spoke with Kane about those early days in Brooklyn, what he can offer today’s rappers, and what the forthcoming Universal Hip-Hop Museum could mean for Black culture.

(Original release date: August 19, 2021)

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Listening: 

• Bun B is Standing Up
• Universal Hip-Hop Museum

The storming of the Capitol building by white extremists loyal to Donald Trump on January 6th, was violent, deadly and shameful.    

But it wasn’t unprecedented. The attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election follows a long tradition in America of white violence, aimed at undoing Democracy.   

At nearly every turn, where this country bent toward freedom, there was a violent backlash. And there is perhaps no clearer example than the story of the only successful coup in U.S. history.  

In 1898, white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina carried out a riot and insurrection, targeting Black lawmakers and residents.  

Inez Campbell Eason’s family survived the coup, but Black lawmakers were ousted, dozens of Black residents were killed, and she tells Trymaine Lee that the impact on the city is still felt. 

Dr. Sharlene Sinegal-Decuir, African American History professor at Xavier University in New Orleans, explains the long history of white violence in response to progress. In order to prevent insurrections like the one last week in Washington, D.C., she says we must begin to understand our past. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Further Reading:

• White rioters at the Capitol got police respect. Black protestors got rubber bullets.
• Law enforcement and the military probing whether members took part in Capitol riot
• Democrats grapple with how to impeach Trump without hindering Biden's agenda

In May of last year, Tops Supermarket in East Buffalo was attacked by a lone white supremacist. Motivated by “great replacement theory,” the shooter targeted an area densely populated with Black residents, leaving this community grief-stricken. 

Into America visited Buffalo and spoke with residents shortly after the incident, so now, on the anniversary of the shooting, Trymaine Lee headed back to East Buffalo to revisit this community which has found strength and healing through each other.

Trymaine Lee speaks with Trinetta Alston, a nurse who’s made it her mission to look after the Tops survivors. And he visits the Love Supreme School of Music, which is putting on a series of wellness concerts for the community. And we get a heartwarming update from former guest Fragrance Harris Stanfield, who was working at Tops the day of the shooting.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Buffalo shooter sentenced to life in prison for racist attack
• Why My Cousin Who Died in the Buffalo Mass Shooting Would Forgive the Shooter
• Watch Trymaine Lee on NBC News Now after Tops reopened

President Joe Biden spent his first 100 days in office passing the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, rolling back executive orders signed by former President Donald Trump, and ramping up a massive vaccination program. 140 million Americans now have at least one dose of the vaccine. His approval ratings are generally high, around 53% according to a new NBC poll. Among Black Americans, it’s much higher, a whopping 83%.

But alongside those numbers is a promise Joe Biden made back in November, during his victory speech. He said to Black Americans, “You always had my back, I’ll have yours.” Has he kept that promise?

Trymaine Lee goes to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a state that barely flipped back to blue in 2020, and a city where Black turnout actually dropped in some neighborhoods, to ask Black voters if they believe Biden has done enough for them in his first 100 days. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Into America: I Have Your Back
• Poll: At 100 days, Biden's approval remains strong. Can the honeymoon last?
• Biden's $1.8 trillion plan: Raise taxes on rich to fund education, child care
• Biden's 100-day bet

As a Black girl in Detroit, Tracy Reese loved making her own clothes and attending the famed Ebony Fashion Fair with her mother. Today, she’s one of the most well-known designers in fashion. Michelle Obama, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Oprah Winfrey have all worn her designs. But getting to this level wasn’t easy. 

Reese is part of a long line of Black designers influencing the fashion industry, while navigating a world where they’re often underrepresented and marginalized. But Black designers, creatives, and brands have still found ways to break through the industry and push the culture forward in fashion.

On this episode of Into America, Reeses peaks to Trymaine Lee about her path to becoming a household name. And Lee speaks with J. Alexander Martin, the co-founder of the iconic sportswear line, FUBU — the first clothing line to integrate fashion with hip-hop culture, media, and entertainment. Martin talks about how he and his crew defied the odds by starting a mainstream brand that is "for us, by us." 

Reese and Martin took very different, but parallel, paths to make it in the industry. Both faced barriers and pressures to conform, while ultimately learning to move confidently and strut their stuff to become the moguls they are today. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, using the handle @intoamericapod.
Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Tracy Reese talks about dressing Michelle Obama
• Hope for Flowers
• FUBU

In a world where being Black and free are not always congruent, Black folks in America have always found ways of escaping the strictures of this country’s racial boundaries. 

In the summer, that meant leaving town, with kids getting sent South to visit relatives, road trips to safe swimming holes, and some heading to historically Black summer havens like Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and Idlewild in Michigan. 

These Black Edens drew generations of upwardly mobile Black people who were shut out of white America during much of the 20th century. And while some, like Bruce’s Beach in California, have been lost to land grabs and gentrification, others are holding tight.

William Pickens III, 84, grew up spending the summers in Sag Harbor Hills, one of the three small beachside communities on Long Island, New York nicknamed the Black Hamptons. Mr. Pickens talks to Trymaine Lee about the traditions and legacy of summering while Black, and the importance of a place where Black families could be themselves.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• How one beach city's racial reckoning is putting California's racist history front and center
• Black Hamptons Enclaves Caught Between Change And Tradition How Oak Bluffs Became a Summer Haven for the African-American Elite
• How Oak Bluffs Became a Summer Haven for the African-American Elite

In May 2020, the murder of George Floyd inspired people to take to the streets in America and overseas, calling for cop reform, the defunding of police, or saying police should be abolished altogether. And as racial injustices continued, communities took matters into their own hands. The Healing and Justice Center in Miami, FL rolled out Freedom House Mobile and Crisis Units as an alternative to people having to call police, particularly in mental health emergencies. 

The group draws its name and inspiration fromFreedom House in Pittsburgh, which in 1968, became the nation’s first paramedics. Prior to 1968, police would transport people to the hospital during medical emergencies; but in Black communities, the result was often a disaster. Freedom House was all Black, rooted in community, and able to save lives. 

In a special two-part story, Into America explores Freedom House then and now; and how Black communities have always worked to keep themselves safe. 

On part one of ‘Don’t Send the Police,’ Trymaine Lee speaks with retired paramedic and health-care worker John Moon about how Freedom House began, and its lasting impact for generations to come.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Into Reimagining Mental Health and Policing
• George Floyd's Murder Won't Change Policing Without Senate
• At Freedom House, these Black men saved lives. Paramedics are book topic

The future is now. Artificial Intelligence already exists in smartphones, helps power social media algorithms, and is accessible through countless apps. AI has generated rappers with records deals and political attack ads.

But as AI gains mainstream attention, AI-powered software that helps landlords select tenants has been proven to discriminate against Black applicants and algorithms have misinterpreted healthcare data, resulting in fewer services for Black patients.

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Gelyn Watkins of Black in AI, to understand the implications of AI for Black America. Together, they test a popular app for accuracy and bias. And, Trymaine has a conversation with the AI version of himself. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript & to check out an AI-generated image of Trymaine, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• AI risks leading humanity to 'extinction,' experts warn
• Why artificial intelligence needs to be on your mind in 2023
• Behind the Power and Threat of A.I.

It’s the second week of the trial of former Minneapolis police officerDerek Chauvin, and witnesses of all ages have been asked to recount what they saw on May 25th, 2020, as Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. Emotions in the courtroom have run high as witnesses have been asked to relive the trauma of last summer. 

In this episode, Dr. BraVada Garrett-Akinsanya, founder of the African American Wellness Institute, a mental health agency in Minneapolis, speaks with Trymaine Lee about the physical, psychological, and spiritual impacts of racial trauma on these witnesses and Black communities across the country. She also unpacks the risks of retraumatizationthat come with a public trial.

Calling herself a "Black Liberation Psychologist", Dr. Garrett-Akinsanya also touches on the healing journey for these witnesses, and with this trauma and grief, their right to be well as human beings.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Derek Chauvin trial: Live updates on George Floyd's death
• Here's what was revealed in the first week of the Derek Chauvin trial
• Into America: Jury System on Trial

Harvard University is confronting its ties to slavery in a new way. In a sweeping report published this week, the university detailed how the school profited from slavery and acknowledged that more than 70 people were enslaved by Harvard leaders, faculty, and staff between 1636 and 1783 when the state of Massachusetts outlawed the practice.

Last year, Into America explored whether the school understood the nuances of Blackness within its student body, because even though Harvard is one of the Blackest Ivy League schools, Black students still make up just 11 percent of the student body. And it’s estimated that less than a third of its Black students are descended from people in enslaved the US. 

With the release of this new report, we wanted to share Trymaine Lee’s conversation with three students from the African diaspora on campus: Mariah Norman, who is a Generational African American, Ife Adedokun, whose parents are Nigerian immigrants, and Kimani Panthier, whose parents immigrated from Jamaica. The group talked about what it’s like to be Black at Harvard and how they want the university to better support them. 

(Originally released December 2, 2021)

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Harvard attempts to reckon with historical ties to slavery in new report
• Watch Trymaine Lee on MSNBC 
   

Over the last year and a half, Into America has met some extraordinary people who have shared with us some equally extraordinary stories, but where are they now? 

On this episode of Into America, we speak with some of our past guests who shaped our show and helped us make better sense of the world around us.

We catch up with old friends like Eric Deggans, who had to figure out how to coordinate his mother’s funeral after her death at the beginning of the pandemic.We speak with activist Jeneisha Harris, who recently changed her mind on gun ownership after a frightenin gincident, and we check in on our good friend, Christopher Martin to see how he is doing after the one-year anniversary of George Floyd. We also talk with two of our favorite business owners, Adija Smith of the Milwaukee bakery Confectionately Yours, and Eddie Lewis III, who was counting on COVID debt relief to save his family’s sugarcane farm in Louisiana. 

Like many of our guests and the rest of the world, our show has evolved, and we want to take this time to reflect and thank you, the listeners, for coming on this journey with us.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Life and Loss in a Pandemic
• Black America's Call to Arms
• At the Sherman Phoenix, Black Businesses Rise
• After George Floyd
• Justice for Black Farmers
• Black Joy in the Summertime

Every June, Pride month is a time for self-expression and celebration. But the road here was paved with struggle and sacrifice.

From confronting police during the Stonewall Uprising, to fighting to stay afloat during the AIDS crisis, to battling in the courtroom for the basic rights of citizenship, generations of LGBTQ people have faced gains and losses.  

Of the frontlines of each of these fights have been queer baby boomers.

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks to elders of the Black community: Naomi Ruth Cobb, a Black lesbian activist from Florida, and Phill Wilson, of the Black AIDS Institute, based in California. We hear two stories, from opposite ends of the country, and learn what it means to find community, grow older, and never back down in the fight for equality. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Pride in the Bible Belt
• They lived a 'double life' for decades. Now, these gay elders are telling their stories.
• Black, Gray and Gay: The Perils of Aging LGBTQ People of Color

This week, jury selection began for the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former police office charged in the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last summer.

Juries hold tremendous power in our legal system. They determine who lives, who dies, and who goes free. The right to a jury of our peers is enshrined in the Constitution, guaranteeing us all the right to a “speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” And yet, juries in America remain overwhelmingly white, even in cases with Black victims and defendants. The Equal Justice Initiative found that white juries spend less time deliberating outcomes, consider fewer perspectives, and ultimately, make more errors. 

Will Snowden is watching closely; he’s a New Orleans public defender and founder of The Juror Project, an advocacy group dedicated to building fair and representative juries. He walks us through the challenges of building a fair jury in such a high-profile case. 

And Trymaine Lee speaks with Charlene Cooke, the sole Black juror on the trial for Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, charged with murdering Laquan McDonald in 2014. She talks about what it was like to be the only Black person in the room.

Editors’ note: This episode incorrectly named the source of the video that captured the Laquan McDonald shooting. The piece has been updated to properly identify the video as police dashcam footage, not cell phone video. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening:

• After George Floyd
• Growing up on the block where George Floyd was killed
• Into an American Uprising: Keith Ellison on George Floyd's Death

We’re welcoming in a new year by checking in on a few former guests. 

Tavonia Evans, founder of the cryptocurrency Guapcoin, gives us the state of her digital economy after the fall of FTX. We also speak with Fragrance Harris Stanfield, a survivor of the Tops shooting in Buffalo, for updates on her perseverance post-tragedy, and talk with one of the families with links to the Tulsa massacre we met in 2021. And we catch up with Akeem Brown, founder of the San Antonio charter school Essence Prep after completing its first semester. Plus, we get new insights from Trymaine Lee’s daughter, Nola Lee, who just turned 10. As we reflect with our guests, we want to take this time to thank you, the listeners, for coming on this journey with us.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica.

For More:

• To listen to each of the original episodes in this year-end update, visit our website or click the links in the description above
• And check our guest updates from the end of 2021

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, also known as the LA Uprising. Before the uprising, tensions in South L.A. were at an all-time high from years of untamed police abuse, gang violence, and strained relations between the Black and Korean American communities. 

In 1991, a Black teenager named Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by Korean storekeeper Soon Ja Du after she accused Harlins of stealing a bottle of juice. Around the same time, the Black community was also stunned by the video of four white police officers brutally beating Rodney King. A year later, on April 29, 1992, all four officers were acquitted and the Black community of South Los Angeles reached its breaking point. The acquittal set off five days of violence, destruction, and looting, with Koreatown being the main target. 

Now, 30 years later, several Black and Korean communities are commemorating the anniversary of the riots by reflecting on the past, and moving forward together. 

This week on Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Rodney King’s daughter, Lora King, about her relationship with her father and how she’s continuing his legacy through the Rodney King Foundation. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Korean American-Black conflict during L.A. riots was overemphasized by media, experts say
• Watch ‘Riot 92: A Los Angeles Story'
  
   

Every September 11th, people across the country commemorate the emergency service workers and countless civilians who were lost on 9/11. This includes the Vulcan Society, an organization of former and active Black firefighters in New York City, who gather at a memorial every year to remember the 12 Black firefighters who lost their lives. 

But many Black firefighters and the families of these fallen heroes feel these men have been overlooked and unrecognized.   

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Trymaine Lee speaks with Kevin Maynard, whosetwin brother Keith was one of the firefighters killed that day. Kevin, who now works for the Houston Fire Department, talks about the brothers’ different paths to becoming firefighters, and his struggles with grief since Keith’s death.

Trymaine also speaks with Captain Paul Washington, the head of Engine 234, a majority Black firehouse in Brooklyn, who was the president of the Vulcan Society during 9/11. Captain Washington talks about how the Vulcan Society pushed for recognition of the Black firefighters who died, and their larger fight for Black representation in the department.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: [[POD ONLY]]:

• Mothers Of Black Firefighters Killed On 9/11 Fight To Keep Their Sons’ Memories Alive
• Vulcan Society

In the early 20th  century, the Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey led the largest movement Black people in the world. Through his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Garvey preached about the great history of Black culture and called on Black people around the world to unite to create an “Africa for Africans.”

But like so many Black leaders, Garvey's fame and power during his lifetime attracted enemies in the white establishment, including J. Edgar Hoover, who was a young agent at the precursor to the FBI. Hoover felt threatened by Garvey, and by 1923, under murky circumstances, Garvey was convicted of mail fraud and sentenced to prison. A few years later, President Calvin Coolidge commuted his sentence, on the condition that the government deport him back to his home country of Jamaica. 

But the conviction against Marcus Garvey stands to this day. For years, his family has been trying to get Garvey a posthumous pardon. This week on Into America, Trymaine Lee talks with Dr. Julius Garvey, Marcus Garvey’s only surviving son, about his father's life, legacy, and Justice4Garvey, the movement to clear the Garvey name.  

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Will President Obama Pardon Civil Rights Icon Marcus Garvey?
• Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association

In 1969, a group of young Black educators and students in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn founded a pan-African organization called The East. They wanted to take control of their community but knew the only way to do that was to create businesses and institutions founded by, run by, and made for them. 

The East became a mecca of Black pride and celebration. They created schools centered around African teachings, a food cooperative, a publishing house, music and dance programs, and a world-famous jazz club. Even though the organization no longer exists, many can still feel the spirit of The Eastin Central Brooklyn today. 

So, when Black-Owned Brooklyn founders, Tayo Giwa and Cynthia Gordy Giwa heard about The East through word of mouth at Brooklyn’s Annual African Arts Festival, they knew it was a story that needed to be told to the masses.

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine speaks with Tayo and Cynthia about their upcoming documentary, “The Sun Rises in The East”, which tells the story of this self-sufficient community. They talk about the film and the seeds planted by The East throughoutBrooklyn today. Trymaine also speaks with Fela Barclift, a former member of The East and co-founder of Afro-centric childhood center, Little Sun People. She talks about the power of the movement and what The East meant to her as an educator. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening:

• The Sun Rises in the East
• Black-Owned Brooklyn
• Little Sun People
• At the Sherman Phoenix, Black Businesses Rise

The movement for reparations is gaining traction across the country, as cities and states debate what is owed to the descendants of the formerly enslaved. This question – what is owed? – has plagued America since the Civil War. But what Into America discovered is that through a strange legal loophole, a small number of Black people may have managed to get paid. In this series, “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” Pulitzer- and Emmy-winning host Trymaine Lee follows the story of Gabriel Coakley, perhaps one of the only Black men in America to receive something akin to reparations. We look at the mark it left on his family for generations and ask: if more Black families had been given a lump sum of money 150 years ago, how might the inequities facing Black America look different today? And how might knowing this story change our current conversation on reparations in America? 

Episode 1 begins in Brooklyn with Coakley’s descendants. With them, we travel back to before the Civil War to learn about Gabriel Coakley’s fight for freedom and, eventually, restitution.In addition to Coakley descendants John, Adele, and Richard Flateau, Trymaine is joined by: author Dr. Chris Myers Asch, archivistsDr. Lopez Matthews and Ishamel Childs, and professor Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson.

Over the past few decades, families have flocked to the affluent Dallas suburb of Southlake for its top-rated school system. But beneath the manicured lawns and gleaming fountains lie something Black families call “Southlake’s dirty secret."

Less than three years ago, two videos of white Southlake teenagers saying the N-word went viral within a few months of one another. The videos prompted an outpouring of stories from Black parents and students, detailing their own experiences with racism in Southlake. For a time, it seemed like the town was united in taking action to confront the problem. 

Then came 2020. As the Black Lives Matter movement picked up steam, so did the backlash. And that backlash threatened to take over the town of Southlake.

This story — and what comes next — is the subject of a new podcast from NBC News called “Southlake.” On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee talks with Southlake co-hosts Antonia Hylton and Mike Hixenbaugh about how a group of parents and students tried to confront racism in their schools; but instead, got steamrolled by their own community. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Listen to Southlake
• A racist video sparked change in a wealthy Texas suburb. Then a 'silent majority' fought back.
• Texas town in spotlight after parents push back against diversity plan

It often takes a tragedy to start a conversation around reform in this country. 

So when two Black men, Duante Wright and Andrew Brown Jr., were killed by police last month as officers were attempting to serve arrest warrants, calls for warrant reform joined the chorus of other demands for change. Last week, Minnesota lawmakers began the process of trying to answer those calls and put forward a bill that would replace arrest warrants with a written warning system for most misdemeanor offenses.  

Ferguson, Missouri may offer lessons about warrant reform to other cities. Reforming the warrant system became a priority in 2015, after the Department of Justice released their report on Ferguson in the wake of Michael Brown’s killing the year before. The report noted that in 2013, Ferguson courts issued nearly 33,000 warrants for arrest, in a city of 21,000 people. The overwhelming majority of warrants were for Black residents. 

ArchCity Defenders, a legal advocacy organization, helped push for warrant reform in the St. Louis region in 2015 and continues the work today. Executive director BlakeStrode talks to Trymaine Lee about how warrants are used to police Black communities, the successes and challenges of warrant reform, and what other places can learn from Ferguson’s fight for justice. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Daunte Wright's death fuels push to change Minnesota warrant process
• Mourners say goodbye to Andrew Brown Jr.
• What the Ferguson DOJ report uncovered about warrants

Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the coronavirus, but they aren't being vaccinated at the same rates as white Americans. Black people are receiving fewer than 7 percent of total vaccine doses, despite representing more than 13 percent of the population. This gap is often based on mistrust of the medical establishment, but there is more to the story. Issues of access mean many folks who want the vaccine, can’t get it.

Janice Phillips tells Trymaine Lee she has been trying to get the vaccine for her 103-year-old mother for months. She and her mother live in Trenton, New Jersey, a city of 85,000 that is near half Black. She watched the news in frustration as she saw images of White residents getting their shots in surrounding suburbs. In New Jersey, just 4 percent of vaccine doses have gone to Black residents. 

So last month, the state launched a new effort that relies on members of the community to help close the access gap. It’s a community partnership that relies on faith leaders to help get communities of color vaccinated. Trymaine speaks with Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora about this new program. And Reverend Darrell Armstrong of Shiloh Baptist Church in Trenton shares the story of how he helped get Janice Phillips and her centenarian mother vaccinated. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com

Further Listening:

• Vaccine equity: ‘Vulnerable populations plan’ a priority for state health leaders
• Governor Phil Murphy visits COVID vaccination site in Trenton
• COVID-19 has seriously impacted the Black church
• CDC COVID Vaccination Tracker: Demographics

BET’s Album of the Year winner Jazmine Sullivan is one of the biggest names in R&B music, but her world stopped back in 2019 when she found out her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Sullivan turned from singing, to taking care of her mom. And over time, she started learning about the racial disparities with disease, like the fact that Black women in the US are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women.

Since then, Sullivan has been using her platform to start conversations about health with her fans; and she’s partnering with a new initiative called More Than Just Words-- a campaign aimed at helping Black women recognize the signs of breast cancer, get early screenings, and arm them with the tools to have tough conversations with their doctors. 

On this week’s episode of Into America, Sullivan sits down with Trymaine Lee to talk about her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis, the journey to recovery, and how Sullivan is using her own experience to help Black women prioritize their health.

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Watch Jazmine Sullivan’s interview with Zerlina Maxwell on The Choice
• NBC's Kristen Dahlgren: The 'lowest' part of breast cancer journey wasn't what I expected

In March of 2019, Morgan Cooper dropped a video on YouTube that quickly went viral. It was a short film that he made as a passion project, after he was struck with a flash of inspiration: What if the 90’s classic The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air were updated for the 21st century? 

Within 24 hours of posting his project online, Cooper got a call from Westbrook, the production company owned by Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Will Smith had seen the video, liked what he saw, and wanted to know what Cooper’s plans were. In short order, Smith flew Cooper to Miami, where he was filming Bad Boys III. 

The two met, and Will Smith signed on to Cooper’s vision, reimagining The Fresh Prince with a much more dramatic tone. They shopped the idea around and found a home at Peacock, NBC’s steaming service. Morgan Cooper was kept on as a writer, executive producer and director for the new series. 

This week on Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with Morgan Cooper about Bel-Air, the creative decisions he’s making with the show, and his lightning quick rise in Hollywood. Trymaine also speaks with actress Cassandra Freeman, who plays Aunt Viv in the new show, as well as hip hop icon DJ Jazzy Jeff, who played Jazz on the original Fresh Prince, and who now hosts Bel-Air: The Official Podcast. 

For a transcript, please visit https://www.msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Interested in Into America merch? Check out the MSNBC store: https://msnbcstore.com/collections/into-america 

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Stream Bel-Air on Peacock
• How a Viral Video Turned Into Bel-Air
• They're Back – See Which Original ‘Fresh Prince' Stars Are Reuniting on ‘Bel Air'

Last week, Into America told the story of Freedom House, a Black-run ambulance service that defined American EMS in the late 1960s. Today, The Healing and Justice Center in Miami, FL operates Freedom House Mobile and Crisis Units, expanding the legacy of wellness from physical to emotional and mental health.

In this special two-part story, Into America explores Freedom House then and now; and how Black communities have always worked to keep themselves safe. 

On part two of ‘Don’t Send the Police,’ Trymaine Lee heads to Miami to speak with Rachel Gilmer, the director of the Healing and Justice Center; Dr. Armen Henderson, director of Health Programs at Dream Defenders, the Center’s parent organization; and others who are spending their days healing the community.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Don’t Send the Police: Send Freedom House
• Caring People Behind a Miami Mental-Health Initiative Want to Change a Tragic Narrative | Editorial

Down on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, there is a small, close-knit Black community named Pointe à La Hache. There, oyster harvesting is a culture and a heritage that has been passed down for generations. But decades of storms, natural disasters, oil spills, and racist policies have threatened this way of life. Now, the state’s coastal restoration plans could end it. 

According to experts, Louisiana loses more than a football field of its jagged coastline every 100 minutes. This leaves coastal communities at risk from rising sea levels, and cities like New Orleans more vulnerable to storms. To fight back, the state has created a 50-year, $50 billion plan to save the disappearing land, which includes diverting water from the Mississippi River through the wetlands around Pointe à La Hache, so sediment from the waters can build up along the shorelines.

The state and environmental advocacy groups believe these diversions are the most effective, cost-efficient, and least intrusive solution to save the coast. But oystermen and other fishermen in Pointe à La Hache say the influx of freshwater will disrupt the brackish waters their oysters need to survive. 

This week on Into America, we travel to Louisiana to speak with Byron Encalade, a third-generation oysterman from Pointe à La Hache, and founder of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, a mostly Black union that represents oystermen of color. Encalade and other Black oystermen have been hit time and again, from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to the 2010 BP oil spill, but Encalade says these diversion plans will destroy what’s left of Pointe à La Hache.

But not all is lost yet. Keslyn and Derrayon Williams, shrimper brothers and owners of Lil Wig’s Seafood and Catering Boat, are still fighting for their family's legacy. They grew up in Pointe à La Hache and remember it as a thriving economic fishing community. Now, they have to travel hours away and compete with bigger boats just to catch shrimp. Derrayon believes if the state stopped these diversions, their community could be restored, but Kelsyn thinks it might be too late. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Read Trymaine’s reporting on this topic from the New York Times
• Into Dirty Air

The violent insurrection against our nation’s Capitol building this month pulled an ugly truth to the surface, one that’s been hiding in plain sight for decades. White supremacist extremism is widespread, deep-rooted and a major threat to our security. In his inaugural address on Wednesday, President Joe Biden named white supremacy as a danger to our unity and vowed to defeat it. 

But law enforcement and government agencies have refused to acknowledge the full scope of the problem, especially when it appears within their own ranks. Will the attack earlier this month motivate the new administration to take this threat more seriously? 

Trymaine Lee sits down with Erroll Southers, a former federal agent and an expert in homegrown extremism at the University of Southern California. Southers lays out how white supremacist extremism was fostered over decades in this country, and the steps President Biden can take to begin to address the crisis. 

Further Reading: 

• Biden sworn in as president, calls on Americans to 'end this uncivil war' of political division
• The Trump-fueled riot shocked America. To some, it was a long time coming.

Retired Florida professor Marvin Dunn has been dismayed at recent efforts to battle so-called critical race theory and limit the way educators can talk about race. Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Stop WOKE Act, which mandated that public schools teach race in a manner where students would not “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress for actions, in which he or she played no part.”

Like many educators, Dr. Dunn feared this would create an environment where teaching hard truths about history is discouraged. He decided to start the Teach the Truth tour.

This week, Trymaine Lee hops on the tour bus with Into America to speak with Dr. Dunn and students about what’s at stake when it comes to learning the truth about American history. They visit historic sites related to the Ocoee Massacre, the lynching of Willie James Howard, and the Black town of Rosewood, which was destroyed a hundred years ago by a white mob.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• Professor slams DeSantis for quashing Black history education
• Know Your History
• ‘We need to hear it.’ This tour explores Florida’s horrific history of racial violence

In Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger announced General Order No. 3: “the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” The day became known as Juneteenth, commemorating the actual end of slavery in the United States. 

Yet more than a century and a half later, Black people in Galveston are still fighting for the “absolute equality” promised to them in that order.

The biggest threat today is gentrification, which began after Hurricane Ike in 2008 destroyed the city’s overwhelmingly Black public housing. The situation was made worse recently by a short-term rental boom fueled by the pandemic. Since 2000, the Black population has plummeted by 38 percent.

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee travels to Galveston to speak with Sam Collins of the Juneteenth Legacy Project, June Pulliam, whose great-great grandparents moved to the island in 1865, and lawyer and activist Anthony P. Griffin, who is trying to preserve land for Black folks in this historic city.

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at intoamerica@nbcuni.com.

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

• DC Votes Yes
• Juneteenth is an opportunity for America to reckon with its racial wealth gap
• Juneteenth shouldn't be about Black people spending but about Black people getting paid