The American Project

For our final episode of season one, we tell the story of Callie House, formerly enslaved, who founded the largest mass movement for reparations.

In this brief episode, we look at how White Supremacists, from Alfred Waddell in Wilmington to Donald Trump, have used the specter of Black men raping White women, for political ends.

Wilmington, North Carolina, was the closest America had come to a true post-racial society -- until a bloody coup in 1898 destroyed the model for a democratic New South and laid the foundation for modern White Supremacy.

The history of America's elite schools is the history of slavery. We look at how Georgetown and Brown Universities are trying to come to terms with their long-hidden origins. Guests include NYT reporter Rachel Swarns who broke the Georgetown story in 2016.

In this wide-ranging conversation, prize-winning economist William Darity, Jr. discusses his plan for reparations for American slavery and its legacy. Based on thirty years of research, Professor Darity's plan is pragmatic, at once fiscally sound and deeply moral. He is co-author, with A. Kirsten Mullen, of the just-published book: "From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century," which has been hailed as "a vital intellectual history and a roadmap for these times."

Black infants die at twice the rate as white infants. Black mothers are 2-3 times more likely to die. Pioneering researchers Dr. Keisha Bentley-Edwards and Dr. Ebony Jade Hilton explain the causes of this lethal gap, and what can be done to close it.

If white Americans know anything about the dark history of American medicine and Black people, they've likely at least heard of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. But as author Harriet Washington explains, Tuskegee was just one example in "a sea of abusive and, frankly, racist experimentation."

The redistribution of millions of acres of land that Lincoln promised freed people, ended with his assassination. It would prove to be one of the most consequential failures in American history.

Nothing exposes existing fissures in society like a catastrophe. The Coronavirus pandemic provides a tragic window into the effect of institutionalized racism on Black community health and how that's related to the call for reparations.

In this first full episode of Season 1, we'll explore the single most vexing question about reparations: How would a program possibly work? Specifically, how could you determine eligibility for receiving reparations?

Sixty years ago today in Greensboro, North Carolina, four Black college students walked into the local Woolworth's and began what became the lunch-counter sit-in movement. It was a pivotal moment in the fight for civil rights in America. I recently talked with Jibreel Khazan, one of the four student from North Carolina A&T, about that day and what led up to it.

In this short preview of Season 1, I introduce myself and say a bit about where we're headed: a deep dive into the issue of reparations for slavery and its continuing legacy. You'll hear from experts and from a rich library of archival recordings about an issue that has its roots deep into American history. Full transcript