Race in America

As the trial approaches for a Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in George Floyd’s death, prosecutors are putting the time Derek Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck at about nine minutes.

Before George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, there was Latasha Harlins. Latasha was a 15 year-old girl shot who was in the back of the head by a Korean shop owner in 1991. Her death struck a chord in the Black community, contributing to protests and civil unrest in the 1992 Riots. Now, decades later a public mural in tribute...

Rep. Terri Sewell, the first Black woman elected to Alabama’s congressional delegation, reminds herself daily that her personal success is not her birthright; rather, that it was made possible only as a result of the blood, sweat and tears poured out by the women, men and children who came before her.

Few outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick paid notice in the days and weeks after Ahmaud Arbery was pursued and shot to death by white men who saw him running in their neighborhood

Purnell Steen, an accomplished jazz musician and civil rights activist, talks about the struggles Black musicians faced at the dawn of the civil rights era.

Purnell Steen talks about the bias Black students faced in the 1960s trying to pursue classical music and how they continue to be discriminated against in all other aspects of their education at the dawn of the civil rights era.

Elizabeth Williams, a former Philadelphia nurse and hospital superintendent, talks about fighting for acceptance as a Black medical professional in the medical system and how discrimination followed her career from hospital to hospital.

Johnnie R. Turner, a former Tennessee state representative, talks about her experience with implicit segregation on buses and public spaces even after courts have ruled to desegregate.

Purcell Conway, a civil rights activist from St. Augustine, Florida, talks about the watershed moments that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and why it’s still not the end of the fight for racial equity in the United States.

Dr. Albert Gaskins, a doctor and desegregationist, speaks about his record as a civil rights activist as a young man and young professionals to open doors for other Black Americans.

While the pandemic’s long-lasting impact has affected public health and the economy, the Asian-American community has also experienced the fallout of COVID-19 – being unfairly blamed for the pandemic and becoming the target of discrimination and violence.

Marie L. Greenwood, the first tenured Black teacher in the Denver public school system so revered that she had an elementary school named after her, recalls how she fought to open the gates for more Black teachers in a system that didn’t have faith in them.