Civil Rights

Happy Juneteenth! Sam and Emma speak to Imani Perry, professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, to discuss the history and legacy of Juneteenth, as well as the importance of its becoming a federal holiday. First, Sam and Emma run […]
Sam and Emma host Gary Orfield, professor and co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, to discuss his recent book The Walls around Opportunity: The Failure of Colorblind Policy for Higher Education. First, Emma and Sam run through updates on the US shooting down China’s spy balloon, the Democratic base’s low enthusiasm […]
Sam and Emma host Adam Hochschild, lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism, to discuss his recent book American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis. First, Sam and Emma run through this weekend’s updates on the Georgia runoff, the North Carolina power station sabotage, this week’s Supreme Court cases, and […]
Sam and Emma host Aaron Kleinman, director of research for the States Project at Future Now to discuss how Roe V. Wade being overturned is affecting fights for state legislatures around the country. Then, they are joined by Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute, to discuss the Biden Administration’s positioning towards Iran. First, Sam and Emma dive into updates from this […]
Sam and Emma host Kellie Carter Jackson, Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, to discuss her recent book Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, using the influence of Black leaders to explore the growth of the abolitionist movement from moral suasion to an understanding that intrinsic rights cannot be granted. Professor […]
Sam and Emma host Keisha Blain, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, to discuss her recent book Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America, on how Hamer’s long life led up to a final decade and a half of incredibly influential activism. Professor Blain walks Emma and Sam back to the […]
The MR Crew are off for Rosh Hashanah today (happy New Year for all who celebrate!), but Sam doesn’t leave you hanging-he sits down with Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California, Berkeley Law School, to discuss his recent book Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights, as well as the […]
Sam and Emma host Yale professor of history Elizabeth Hinton to discuss her new book America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s and the importance of recasting what were once considered “riots” as rebellion, and how the original framing of those events helped elected officials stall on civil rights. […]
Sam and Emma host Columbia Law professor Jamal Greene to discuss his new book “How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart.” They delve into the absolutist, legalized view of rights that frames discourse in the US, how it diverges from the Framers original community-shaped vision of rights, and how […]
Sam interviews Jennifer Berkshire & Jack Schneider of the Have You Heard podcast about their book,  A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School.” Jack begins by giving a brief history on the origins of the anti-public education movement in Bary Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, as a response, […]