Into America

Ali Velshi gives a special preview of his new podcast, “Velshi Banned Book Club,” an act of resistance against the epidemic of book banning. In each episode, a different author of a banned book joins Ali—including Margaret Atwood, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Laurie Halse Anderson and more—to talk about why their work is being targeted and about the literature itself. “Velshi Banned Book Club” is a series rooted in literary and cultural analysis and in the notion of reading as resistance. Listen to the first two episodes now and follow the series:https://link.chtbl.com/vbbc_fdlw

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 [email protected].

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

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 

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 

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 [email protected].

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

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 [email protected].

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

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 [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More: 

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

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 [email protected].

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

America as we know it today would be nothing without Black labor. From the first enslaved Africans who built our economy, to the unheralded agricultural and domestic workers during segregation, to the frontline workers who put their health on the line during the pandemic. 

Historian Blair LM Kelley has been highlighting the stories of the Black working class her whole career. In her new book Black Folk, she traces the story of Black workers from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement. Kelley unearths forgotten stories of the sharecroppers, washerwomen, Pullman Porters, and US Postal Service employees (to name a few) who provided the engine for the American economy for generations. 

Beginning with her own family’s history, she details not only the hardships Black workers faced, but also the joy in community, and collective power in labor organizing, the effects of which still echo today.

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

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

For a transcript, please visit our homepage.

For More:

• Into Dirty Air
• Reconstructed: Birth of a Black Nation
• The Quiet Power of Preservation

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 [email protected].

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