There’s no denying the deep roots of racism and inequality throughout America’s history. From the history of stolen and devalued Black labor to the legislative roadblocks and redlining that intensified inequality, these listens illuminate the systemic injustices and crimes perpetrated against Black people in America. The clear, unflinching lens they provide into our past and present is critical to building a more equitable future.
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Smith leads the listener on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks - those that are honest about the past and those that are not - that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s history....
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions....
A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present....
Dr. Ayanna Howard is an innovator, entrepreneur, leader, and international expert in robotics and AI. In this powerful and thorough Audible Original, Howard draws on her personal experience as one of the few Black women working in the field of robotics. She shares the bias she experienced, and the ways in which the field of AI and computer programming too often produce machines that mirror the largely white and male world around them. Voice recognition systems have been rolled out that cannot hear female voices. The danger of bias is great, and while Howard warns about the risks of AI, she also delivers an uplifting and empowering message about where our society should go next — a message worth listening to.
The night of May 25, 2020 changed America. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis when a White cop suffocated him. The video of that night’s events went viral, sparking the largest protests in the nation’s history....
Five patients, one treatment room, and a broken healthcare system.Ivan Beckley is about to become a fully-qualified doctor in the UK. But he’s not convinced that healthcare works for everyone equally...
More Than a Vote is a nonprofit voting rights organization aimed at combating voter suppression, systemic racism, and misinformation that disproportionately disenfranchises communities of color. In this one-of-a-kind Words + Music special, we hear from an all-star chorus of activists....
Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society....
Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans....
This New York Public Library selection as one of the 150 most important books of the 20th century is a true-life portrait of growing up in the Chicago projects....
Timely and provocative, The Black and The Blue sheds light on what truly goes on behind the blue line....
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project....
Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically....
A heartfelt, and riveting biography of the short life of a talented young man who escapes the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets....
During the 19th century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced economies. At the same time, the nation sustained a brutal system of human bondage....
An engaging look at black life that offers insightful commentary on the intricate history of the African American people....
In The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington write a true story of Southern Gothic horror - of two innocent men wrongly convicted of vicious crimes....
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“A must-read, cannot-put-down history.” (Thomas Friedman, New York Times)
Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to cost him his life.
In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a White 17-year-old girl cried rape, McCall pursued four young Black men who dared envision a future for themselves beyond the groves. The Ku Klux Klan joined the hunt, hell-bent on lynching the men who came to be known as "the Groveland Boys".
Associates thought it was suicidal for Marshall to wade into the "Florida Terror", but the young lawyer would not shrink from the fight despite continuous death threats against him.
Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI's unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund files, Gilbert King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader.