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. 

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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

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Chris Hayes is on tour with his podcast "Why Is This Happening?" for a series of live shows. In Chicago, he celebrated 50 years of hip-hop at the House of Blues. He was joined by scholar Imani Perry, rapper Vic Mensa, and "Into America" host Trymaine Lee. Trymaine talked about why this music has meant so much to him throughout his life, why it matters for Black America - and all Americans, and what new tidbits he learned while making our "Street Disciples" series earlier this year. 

Plus, a quick update on "Into America." 

For a transcript of the episode and to hear more "Into America" or "Why Is This Happening?" please visit msnbc.com/podcasts.

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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

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In the 1920s, Josephine Baker escaped the violent racism of in the United States to seek refuge in Paris, like so many other Black American creatives have done over time. Baker found that France welcomed her, and the freedom she found there helped her become an international sensation in dancing, singing, and acting. 

Baker eventually became not only a French citizen but a decorated hero in the French Resistance during World War II. She also continued to speak out against racism in her home country, and was the only woman on the official speakers list at the 1963 March on Washington. 

All of this helped Baker become the first Black woman, first American, and first entertainer inducted into the Panthéon in Paris, one of the greatest honors bestowed in France. On this episode of Into America, host Trymaine Lee talks about the significance of this honor with Ricki Stevenson, a Black American whose own move to Paris in the 1990s was inspired by Baker, and who has been fighting for more recognition for Baker here in the States. 

During the induction ceremony last month, French President Emmanuel Macron called Baker “ever fair, ever fraternal, ever fraternal, and ever French,” and held her up as a shining example of French universalism: “Being Black didn’t take precedence over being American or French. She was not fighting in the name of a Black cause, no she was fighting to be a free citizen, one who lived in dignity and completely free.”

But France’s relationship with race is much more complicated than that. Rokhaya Diallo, a French journalist, author, and activist, tells Into America that Macron’s words dilute Baker’s own contributions to civil rights, and also obscure the racism that Black French people like her experience on a daily basis. 

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: Harlem on My Mind
• Into America: Haiti’s Unforgiveable Blackness

EDITOR’S NOTE: After this episode published, we did hear back from a representative of the French Embassy in Washington, DC. Visit our website to read a summary of their statement. 

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Looking back on 2021, it felt like maybe Black Americans got closer to knowing justice.In April, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd. And the day before Thanksgiving, three white men were found guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery.  

But 2021 wasn’t all about victories.  

Last month, a jury in Wisconsin cleared Kyle Rittenhouse of multiple homicide charges after he shot and killed two people at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. Rittenhouse, who says he brought a semi-automatic rifle to the protest to “protect property,” successfully argued that he fired his weapon in self-defense. 

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee is joined by two of today’s most prominent civil rights leaders to explore whether Black people in this country can ever experience true justice. 

Reverend Al Sharpton, the founder of the National Action Network and host on MSNBC, says while there were setbacks, there was plenty to celebrate in 2021. “I think that we ought to mark those victories we get, so people will know we're not fighting alone.”

Attorney Ben Crump, who represented both families of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd this year, agrees. “We're continuously on this journey. We take sometimes some steps forward and then there are going to be steps back.” But the guilty verdicts this year, he says, "give us hope for America.”

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: The Movement for Ahmaud Arbery
• Into America: A Verdict for Derek Chauvin
• Into America: After George Floyd, with Christopher Martin

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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

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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

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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

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In the first year of the Iraq War, seven soldiers were captured and held prisoner by the Iraqi forces for 22 days. Two of them were women. One was Private First Class Jessica Lynch, whose story of heroism was praised in national headlines when she returned to America. The other woman was Specialist Shoshana Johnson, America’s first Black female prisoner of war. Except you might not remember her. 

The two women are friends, and both risked their lives for this country, suffering significant injuries. But the national spotlight on Lynch’s story left Johnson’s heroism overlooked and unrecognized.

On Veterans Day, Trymaine Lee speaks with Shoshana Johnson about her traumatic capture and rescue, her life after the war, and how she wants the military to honor the sacrifices of women of color who wear the uniform.

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 more Veterans Day coverage from NBC News
• First black female POW sets the record straight

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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

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Boston maintains a reputation as one of the most racist cities in America, despite its long abolitionist history and image as a bastion of East Coast liberalism. And in many ways that reputation is well-earned. From the city’s staggering racial wealth gap, to its violent backlash against school desegregation in the 1970’s, to racial epithets hurled at Black athletes to this day, there’s plenty of evidence to back up the assertion that Beantown is racist. But often left out of the conversation are the voices of Black Bostonians themselves. 

Writer, historian and Boston native Dart Adams is on a mission to change that. Dart leads walking tours in the city, highlighting overlooked aspects of Black Boston’s past and present. He recently wrote an article arguing that Black Bostonians are caught in the middle of the debate over their city’s racism. At home they face erasure in Boston’s media landscape, as well as the injustices that Black folks everywhere navigate in dealing with systemic racism. But they also face friendly fire from Black folks outside the city when they try to bring a level of nuance to the conversation which outsiders lack. 

This week on Into America, Dart Adams gives Trymaine Lee an insider’s view of Black Boston, from the city’s rich musical history to its role as home to some of the greatest Black leaders in civil rights history during their formative years. He also gives us a sense of what it’s like to love a city that doesn’t always love you back.

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: 

• Is Boston America’s Most Racist City? Ask a Black Bostonian for Once (By Dart Adams)
• For 200 years, Boston elected white men as mayor. Now, a woman of color will lead.
• ‘I Saw a Lot of Hatred': Looking Back at Boston's Busing Crisis

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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

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Nearly 30 years ago, California voters approved Prop 209, which banned affirmative action for the state’s public universities. For some elite schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA, Black student enrollment plummeted, changing the campuses for decades to come. On Into America, we’re going back to Cali to get a glimpse of what life on campus was like during the golden age of Black student enrollment, how the campus responded to threats to end affirmative action, and what the eventual end of the program meant for generations of Black students. 

Trymaine Lee speaks with former Cal student Quamé Love, along with others who have walked the campus over the years, and he’s joined by UCLA history and education professor Eddie R. Cole for context on what the Supreme Court’s decision means at this moment in the nation’s history.

In this episode, you can also get a sneak peak of actress Alfre Woodard reading the entirety of Justice Brown Jackson’s dissent in the recent Supreme Court case over affirmative action for our friends over at The Beat. 

And an update from Into America: we’re going to be stepping away for a few months to work on a new reporting project. So we’ll be back in your feeds with a special season of the show shortly. But if you miss us before then, why not re-listen to a few of our favorite episodes below?

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
• Into “I Have a Dream”
• The Power of the Black Vote: Taking Back the Classroom

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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’

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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

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On September 19th, photographers captured a harrowing scene at the US Mexico border: Border Patrol agents, on horseback, chasing and intimidating a large group of Haitian migrants as they tried to cross into Texas.

The images sparked outrage, and President Joe Biden eventually condemned the actions of the agents. But since that day, the Department of Homeland Security has expelled nearly 4,000 Haitian migrants on 37 flights to Haiti — without giving them a chance to claim asylum — under a Trump-era public health rule designed to protect the US from incoming disease. 

Nana Gyamfi, the executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, says that the administration is hiding behind policy, rather than standing up for migrants. And for people like Garry Pierre-Pierre, a Hatian-American journalist who founded the Haitian Times news site, it’s been hard to feel like he’s stuck between his adoptive country and his homeland. 

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: 

• Top U.S. diplomat in Haiti resigns over 'inhumane' treatment of migrants
• Treatment of Haitians at the border in Texas exposes double standard toward refugees
• Into America: Protecting Florida Farmworkers

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Two things are true. Texas is one of the hottest states in the country and climate change is real. Yet, Texas is one of thirteen states that do not have universal air conditioning installed in their state prisons. As climate change gradually makes the state hotter, prisons are forcing their staff and inmates to endure extreme temperatures with little to no relief. 

LaQuita Davis, now released on parole, was one of those inmates at Lane Murray women's prison in Gatesville, Texas.It was there that she noticed it getting hotter in the prison. That led to many unbearable days and nights; to the point where she had to soak her clothes in water every half hour to cool down enough to sleep at night. 

On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Davis about her time in Lane Murray and how she made it through the Texas heat behind bars with no air conditioning. 

He also speaks with Dr. Susi Vassallo, a Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at NYU’s Med School, who has been studying the issue of heat in prisons for several years. She talks about the effect of extreme heat on the body and how prison populations are especially vulnerable to heat-related illnesses.

Trymaine also sits down with Amite Dominick, president of Texas Prisons Community Advocates, who for years has been fighting for legislation to bring air conditioning to Texas prisons.  

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: 

• Texas Prisons Air-Conditioning Advocates
• Mock Prison Cell
• NBC News Climate Coverage

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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

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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

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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

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In the 1960s, America burned. Black communities’ frustration against racist policies, economic isolation, and police brutality spilled into the streets in cities across the country.Hundreds were killed, many by police, and cities like Newark and Los Angeles were left with tens of millions of dollars in property damages. 

In 1967, shortly after the uprising in Detroit, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the creation of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, to investigate the causes of the protests. It would become known as the Kerner Commission, for its chair, Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois.

The panel was mostly white, and all men. But what the commission ultimately found was damning. The Kerner Commission Report, published in 1968, found that white America was responsible for the structural and societal failings that led to the uprisings, famously declaring “white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it. And white society condones it.”

These words, written over 50 years ago, are still relevant today. To some, the words may even seem radical. 

That’s why New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb decided to edit and publish a new version of the findings, called“The Essential Kerner Commission Report.” Trymaine Lee sat down with Jelani at a special New York Public Library event to talk about the re-released report, the discarded recommendations, and why the report is crucial to understanding America today. 

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:

• Detroit at Crossroads 50 Years After Riots Devastated City
• Newark Riots Recall an Era Echoed by Black Lives Matter
• A Warning Ignored: Jelani Cobb on the Essential Kerner Commission

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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

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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)

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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 

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Texas State Representative Senfronia Thompson remembers when her grandparents had to save pennies so they could pay a poll tax in order to vote. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, which outlawed Jim Crow restrictions like literacy tests and poll taxes designed to keep Black Americans from voting. But 56 years after President Lyndon Johnson signed that landmark legislation, Representative Thompson has found herself in the middle of another heated battle over voting rights.  

This year alone, after Donald Trump falsely claimed he lost the 2020 election due to voter fraud, Republicans in 18 states have passed at least 30 new laws that restrict voting, claiming they are acting in the name of “election security.” That includes a law in Florida aimed at reducing early voting and drop box locations, and one in Georgia that would allow the legislature to take over local election boards and bans passing out food and water to people waiting to vote.  

And then there’s Texas. Earlier this summer, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called special legislative session to pass a slew of Republican priorities, including voting restrictions. GOP lawmakers had the votes, but a group of Democrats pulled the only card they had left and fled the state to stall the vote. Rep Senfronia Thompson was one of them.  

Trymaine Lee speaks with Rep. Thompson, who is the longest-serving Black lawmaker in state history, about why she’s risking arrest to keep up the fight for voters back home in Texas and to push for better voter protections nationwide.

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: 

• 3 house Texas democrats to testify in front of Subcomittee
• House democrats push leadership vote on slimmed down voting bill
• Into a New Voting Rights Act
• Into Remembering John Lewis

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With COVID restrictions in place, the cheering section at this year’s Olympics may be a little quieter than usual. Still, the pomp and circumstance are still on display in Tokyo, as the world’s greatest athletes come together to compete. 

But the global stage isn’t just a chance to display athletic feats, it’s also an opportunity for some athletes to make a statement. Several women’s soccer teams, including the US team, have taken a knee before matches. And before the Olympics started, American hammer thrower Gwen Berry turned from the flag after winning third place during the Olympic trials. 

Berry and other activist-athletes other stand on the shoulders of people like sprinter Wyomia Tyus. In 1968, Tyus showed up ready to the Mexico City Olympics ready win. But 1968 wasn’t just about the games – it was a time of widespread protest, for Black Americans in particular. So Tyus used her stage to run in solidarity with other Black athletes. 

Dr. Amira Rose Davis, co-host of the feminist sports podcast Burn It All Down explains why Tyus ultimately got overshadowed, in part because she was a Black woman; and because it was the same year as one of the biggest moments in sports history: when John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists in the air after winning medals in the men’s 200-meter race. 

Tyus says that she didn’t mind Carlos and Smith getting most of the attention that year. She understands her legacy and is excited to see Black women like Berry continuing to build on the tradition of sports activism. 

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:

• Follow full coverage of the Olympics games with NBC
• 2021 Olympics in Tokyo highlights struggles of Black athletes in white spaces
• Into America: Enough is Enough

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Sometimes discrimination is systemic. Sometimes it’s emotional. And sometimes, it’s made of brick and mortar. The Eight Mile Wall in Detroit, also known as the Birwood Wall and the Wailing Wall, was built in 1941 to separate Black and white residents in what is now known as the Wyoming neighborhood. 

Erin Einhorn is an NBC News national reporter based in Detroit. She recently teamed up with Olivia Lewis, a reporter and editor for the local nonprofit newsroom Bridge Detroit to outline the creation of this half-mile-long wall, financed by one of the city’s most prominent families, and its impact on Detroit residents. 

One of those residents is Rose McKinney-James, a clean energy consultant. She’s based in Las Vegas now, but grew up in Detroit. Rose’s grandmother, Burniece Avery, was a community activist who fought against the wall and other forms housing discrimination. 

And they spoke with Teresa Moon, a retired city employee and long-time resident of the Eight Mile neighborhood. Teresa grew up with the wall literally in her backyard, and is now one of the neighborhood’s biggest cheerleaders. 

Trymaine Lee sits down with Erin and Olivia to learn about the history of the Eight Mile Wall. And he speaks with Rose and Teresa about the legacy the wall left on their families. 

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: 

• Read the NBC News special report by Erin Einhorn and Olivia Lewis: Built to keep Black from white
• Documentary: A Detroit neighborhood stands in the shadow of a segregation wall built 80 years ago
   

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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'

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When Brent Leggs started as a preservationist with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2005, his first big project was to restore Joe Frazier’s Gym in Philadelphia. The late boxing champion’s former building was being turned into a discount furniture outlet. Brent and his colleagues knew the space had the power to tell a story of Black achievement and history, so they worked to restore he gym as a symbol of community pride. 

Brent is now the Executive Director of the Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. The Fund was launched in 2017 with the goal of preserving places key to Black life. These are the places that tell a fuller story of America, and Brent says that saving them can ensure that Black societal contributions are more fully understood. So far, the Fund has awarded grants to 65 historic locations and invested more than $4.3 million dollars to help preserve places like Nina Simone’s childhood home in North Carolina, Madame CJ Walker’s Villa Lewaro in New York, and Vernon AME church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Earlier this summer, they received a $20 million dollar donation from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. So, Brent and his colleagues now have even more support to pursue what he describes as the “quiet power of preservation.”

Brent talks with Trymaine Lee about how he fell in love with this work, and he takes us on a journey into a few of his favorite projects. 

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: ‘My Body is a Monument’
• Into America: Blood on Black Wall Street: What Was Stolen
• House passes bill to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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The world met Christopher Martin when he testified in the Derek Chauvin trial.

Christopherwas just 18-years-old when he accepted a counterfeit $20 bill from George Floyd as a clerk at a Minneapolis Cup Foods. That bill led to a 911 call, and eventually George Floyd’s death.Christopher’s composed yet emotional testimony over his role and his guilt resonated across the country, but his own story is still mostly untold. 

Christopher opens up to Trymaine Lee about his life before George Floyd, the trauma of that day and how he’s trying to move forward a year later.

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: 

• Cashier who alleged Floyd used fake $20 testifies
• Chauvin Trial: Surveillance Video Shows Inside Convenience Store
• Store clerk who testified at Derek Chauvin trial still feels ‘guilt’ at his death (Good Morning America)

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Black men are crying out. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for young Black Americans and our young men are at particular risk. Stigmas, health care access, and social pressures to appear hyper-masculine stop a lot of Black men from getting help. But a grassroots program known as The Confess Project is trying to break this pattern. 

The group started in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2016, and now trains barbers across the country to act as mental health advocates by equipping them with strategies to listen and respond to the pain of the men they see in their chairs. 

Trymaine Lee talks to the founder of The Confess Project, Lorenzo Lewis; and Louisville barber J. Divine Alexander breaks down how the program has helped him support his clients, and, been good for his own mental 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 Listening: 

• Into America: Reimagining Mental Health and Policing
• Arrested, then traumatized: Black people on what comes after police encounters
• Check out these books from The Confess Project’s founder, Lorenzo Lewis

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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

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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

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Three hundred and thirty-one days ago, Derek Chauvin put his knee on the neck of George Floyd for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. George Floyd took his last breath on his stomach, hands cuffed behind his back.

His death, captured on cell phone video by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, sparked a summer of unrest and calls to abolish the police around the country. 

This week, after a televised trial and around 11 hours of deliberation, the jury found Derek Chauvin guilty of all three charges he faced: second- and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. 

It was the first time in Minnesota state history that a white police officer has been held accountable for killing a Black man. It was the first time that America could call Derek Chauvin what many have long believed he is. Murderer.

With this verdict, what has been achieved? And what work remains? 

Shaquille Brewster, correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, explains the reforms activists in Minneapolis hope to see next. And Shaquille and Trymaine talk about what it has been like covering this case as Black journalists.

And in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trymaine sits down with Tiffany Crutcher, whose brother Terence Crutcher was shot and killed by police in 2016. They talk about how the families of people who have been killed by police are working together to push for greater police accountability and a system that brings us closer to 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: 

• Derek Chauvin guilty of murder in George Floyd's death  
• Here's what the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would do 
• 'It's a start': People in Minneapolis greet the Chauvin conviction with mixed emotions 

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Tucked inside the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill signed by President Biden on March 11, 2021, is $5 billion worth of aid to help Black and disadvantaged farmers. The American Rescue Plan includes $4 billion to erase debt for any farmer with an outstanding loan that involves the USDA.  And an additional $1 billion dollars has been planned for training, technical assistance, and legal aid... all aimed at helping farmers of color acquire and maintain land, after decades of discrimination from the USDA.

Eddie Lewis III is a 5th generation sugarcane farmer from Youngsville, Louisiana. He and his brothers farm the land their ancestors were once sharecroppers on. The Lewis family has paid off millions of dollars in debt to the USDA, and they still have $600,000 in debt remaining. Lewis was thrilled to hear about the relief package because without help, the family is at risk of foreclosure.

Lewis joins Trymaine Lee for this episode of Into America, along with John Boyd from the National Black Farmers Association. Boyd walks us through the details of the legislation, and the history of discrimination that has made it so necessary. 

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: 

• What's in the $1.9 trillion Covid bill Biden just signed? You might be surprised
• Into America: Food for the Soul
• Into America: Into Protecting Florida Farmworkers

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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

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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

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