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PODCAST

Notes from America with Kai Wright

Notes from America with Kai Wright is a show about the unfinished business of our history, and its grip on our future.

news news commentary

All Episodes

23:06

The Truth Behind the Religious Right

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/03/23

Some believe that the religious right’s roots begin with Roe v. Wade. But there was an earlier court decision about the rights of segregated schools that first mobilized them. The recent surge in anti-trans legislation nationwide sparked a conversation on our show, about how the religious right has worked to deny the rights and existence of LGBT people for decades. This movement dates back to the early 1970s; to trace its history, producer Jessica Miller visits Mississippi and follows the bitter

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49:09

The History Behind New Waves of Anti-Trans Legislation

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/03/20

State lawmakers across the country are introducing new waves of legislation targeting the transgender community. What’s behind this movement? To answer this question, we first turn to history. Host Kai Wright speaks with Imara Jones, founder of TransLash Media and host of the podcast The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality. Jones shares the national picture of this surge in anti-trans legislation and centers this political moment in religious history. Then, Henry Seaton, the

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18:56

The Rocky Statue: A Famous Monument to a Fictitious Hero

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/03/16

Why do millions of people from around the world flock to Philadelphia, PA, to visit a statue….of a fictional character? We ask Paul Farber, host of the WHYY podcast The Statue. Many who have been to Philadelphia have visited the iconic plaza outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art that houses the Rocky statue. But what does a statue celebrating a fictional boxer tell us about how and why we create monuments? Paul Farber is a Philly native, director of The Monument Lab, and host of the podcast The

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31:50

Revising History, One Monument at a Time

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/03/13

Artist Michelle Browder lives in a city that is increasingly being altered by monumental works…including one she created herself. More than 30 years ago, as an 18-year-old art student in Atlanta, Michelle Browder came across a work of art that haunted her. The picture was meant as a tribute to Dr. J. Marion Sims, a 19th century doctor long known as the 'Father of Gynecology.’ His discoveries, only made possible by his experimentation on enslaved women, endowed his legacy in U.S. history, yet erased

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24:56

Preserving Untold Oral Histories

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/03/09

Our national story comprises all of us. We hear stories from listeners and The HistoryMakers founder Julieanna Richardson that capture the living history that often goes unmentioned. How can we craft a new version of our national history that includes people who have been written out of it? Julieanna Richardson is someone who is also asking this question. She’s doing the work through The HistoryMakers, a digital archive she founded that captures the oral histories of more than 3,400 African

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24:34

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Hollywood

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/03/06

We continue our Black History Is Now series with Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of the hit films “The Woman King” and “Love & Basketball,” among others that center Black voices. “The Woman King” has received widespread acclaim and has inspired representation for women on the big screen. For Gina Prince-Bythewood, the film’s director, this movie is the latest in what has been a long career of promoting representation and excellent cinema. She joins host Kai Wright to talk about her experience

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36:08

Celebrating Terrance McKnight’s ‘Every Voice’ Podcast

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/03/02

Terrance McKnight, evening host on WQXR, unearths the hidden voices that shape our musical traditions in the new podcast "Every Voice with Terrance McKnight.” McKnight has spent decades interrogating the classical world, raising questions about race relations in the genre and therefore introducing his listeners to often overlooked or forgotten music and voices. Kai Wright joins McKnight live from The Greene Space stage to celebrate the launch of McKnight’s new WQXR podcast “Every Voice.” We’re

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50:48

How Respectability Politics Erased Young Women From...

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/27

We mark the end of Black History Month with a conversation about the people who are too often left out when we celebrate the past. What do we learn when we study the history of those considered wayward and existing outside of the norms of the day? Cultural historian and MacArthur fellow Saidiya Hartman introduces host Kai Wright to the young women whose radical lives were obscured by respectability politics. Hartman is the author of "Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of

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22:35

Black History Is Now: How Misty Copeland Went From...

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/23

Continuing our Black History Month series, ballet sensation Misty Copeland shares her journey to believing she was special. As the first African American woman to be a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater in 2015, Misty Copeland made history. Now, she continues to shape the future by inspiring young dancers and sharing not just her story, but also her inspiration in her memoir “The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor, Raven Wilkinson.” Copeland joins host

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32:17

The Battle Over Black Studies

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/21

Black studies is not about inclusion. It’s about disruption – which is why some fear it. Black studies is under partisan attack, not only in Florida but around the country. With the effort to eliminate the field of study comes the erasure of scholarship and activism. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, African American studies professor at Northwestern University and author of the book “Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership,” has faced this firsthand. Taylor

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42:45

How Black People Remade Mississippi

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/16

Down in the Mississippi Delta, the Lester Family made a space for themselves and claimed their land–and they didn’t need “40 Acres and a mule” to do it. In February 2023, Pearline Lester passed away peacefully. We’re revisiting this story about her family’s legacy in her honor. Her husband, Elbert Lester has lived his full life in Quitman County, Mississippi, on land their family owns. That’s exceptional for Black people in this area today, but at one time, Black farmers owned the majority of this

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48:46

A First Date Immigrant Story

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/13

Boy meets girl, boy’s an immigrant, they go on a first date. The date does not go well. 17 years later, the boy discovers that being an immigrant played a role, on both sides. What happened? Senior Digital Producer Kousha Navidar guest hosts a conversation about coming of age as an immigrant in the U.S. He shares the story of his failed first date, a rare second chance and what the experience revealed about what it means to be an immigrant. Then, Sabaa Tahir, author of the National Book

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24:07

American Political Myths Have Consequences For Us All

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/09

From the “Southern Strategy” to the civil rights movement, we’re surfacing what is true about our nation’s past, and what is propaganda masquerading as history. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made headlines again after striking down the College Board’s Advance Placement course on African American Studies in the state. Simultaneously, the College Board was making changes to the curriculum that some critics claim, omits key details from the history. Schools are common sites of cultural provocation

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26:37

Black Music’s Most Memorable Moments With Emil Wilbekin

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/06

In the spirit of the Grammys, Emil Wilbekin, a founding editor of VIBE, offers a first-person history of Black popular music, from Soul Train to Beyoncé. On Notes from America we focus on Black history regularly, but to celebrate this year’s Black History Month, we’re thinking about it in the present tense. In our series Black History Is Now, we’ll bring you conversations with people who consider their work to be a continuum of Black history, all month. Emil Wilbekin, culture journalist and a

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17:33

Putting An End To Toxic Cop Culture

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/02/02

When it comes to police reform, a retired NYPD detective argues that policing as a profession must evolve or go away completely. The problem of police violence, and the excessive use of force in Black and Brown communities in particular, has spanned centuries and retired NYPD detective Marq Claxton says that the force’s stubborn, insular culture was built to last. Claxton, co-founder of the organization 100 Blacks In Law Enforcement Who Care and member of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance, joins

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32:16

History On Repeat: The Killing Of Tyre Nichols

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/01/30

The release of brutal footage of the killing of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols by police officers in Memphis furthers an all-too-familiar conversation about accountability and police violence. The Black community in Memphis and nationwide is processing the details of Tyre Nichols’ killing at the hands of law enforcement - from the race of the police officers to the footage of the beating and why this is a persistent problem in America. To help unpack the story, host Kai Wright speaks with Karanja Ajanaku,

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19:18

Monterey Park: The Making of America’s First Suburban...

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/01/26

A mass shooting in Monterey Park, California – on the eve of Lunar New Year – sent shockwaves through the predominantly Asian American ethnoburb and the Asian American community nationwide. The toll of mass shootings this year in the U.S. is already in the dozens in just the first month of 2023. In Monterey Park, California, a majority Asian American community shaken by loss of lives at the hands of an armed gunman, emotions are high given the circumstances. The victims were at a celebration for

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47:09

Living With And Learning From Estrangement

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/01/23

Estrangement isn’t linear. For those who have severed ties or been cut off, it can be necessary, empowering, devastating and confounding—all at once. A recent series from WNYC’s Death, Sex & Money podcast explores the complexities of estrangement, which they define as an experience of feeling cut off from a relationship or a community that once felt like home. Death, Sex & Money host Anna Sale teams up with Kai Wright to expand on the topic in a listener-driven episode. Together with

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19:25

The Not-So-Sunny Side of Louis Armstrong’s Legacy

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/01/19

What made Louis Armstrong’s music so groundbreaking? And after he broke that ground, why were later generations of Black people reluctant to embrace him? From his renditions of “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” to “What A Wonderful World,” trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong is cemented in history as a jazz icon. But for many Black people – especially those in the mid-twentieth century – his presentation was degrading and received as minstrelsy for white audiences. Filmmaker Sacha Jenkins traces

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58:12

The Legacy of MLK Jr. Is To Be Young, Gifted and Black

Notes from America with Kai Wright ·

2023/01/16

How does Martin Luther King Jr.’s generation of young, gifted, and Black people inspire today’s changemakers and their ideas for how to achieve racial justice? The Apollo has a decades-long tradition of serving as a convener for local community residents as well as people from across New York City and the world. That tradition continues as The Apollo partners with WNYC for the annual celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his enduring legacy on the culture. The 17th annual Apollo Uptown

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422 results

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