This week on In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. concludes his conversation with writer and filmmaker Byron Hurt and Althier Eady, granddaughter of Lee and Liza Hurt, discussing the development and production of Lee and Liza’s Family Tree, Hurt’s documentary film about the history of the Hurt family.
slavery
Byron Hurt and Althier Eady, pt. 1 (Ep. 12, 2024)
This week on In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. begins a conversation with documentary filmmaker and writer Byron Hurt and Althier Eady, granddaughter of Lee and Liza Hurt, about a new documentary film recently aired on PBS about the efforts of the Hurt family to trace their roots as descendants of enslaved people.
Dr. Blair LM Kelley (Ep. 4, 2024)
On this week’s edition of In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. speaks with Dr. Blair LM Kelley, a noted scholar of Black History and the African American experience, Director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and author of Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class.
Dr. Sarah Washington O’Neal Rush (Ep. 40, 2023)
On this week’s In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. speaks with Dr. Sarah Washington O’Neal Rush, author, educator, and great-granddaughter of former slave turned famous educator and founder of Tuskegee University and became on of the most influential African American leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries, Booker T. Washington.
Brittney Martin (Ep. 35, 2023)
On this editi0n of In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. speaks with Brittney Martin, co-host and Executive Producer of Sugar Land, and eight-episode podcast that explores how the discovery of an old cemetery forced a city to confront the truth of its history of a convict-leasing program with roots in slavery.
Texas Standard: September 06, 2022
A democrat running for a top statewide office gets a big endorsement from a prominent Republican. Could it shake up the midterms in Texas? Other stories we’re tracking: what’s happening with home prices in Texas? Why price trends are pointing toward a return to a buyers market…with some big caveats. Plus, a study that could lead to reclaiming toxic wastewater from oil and gas production. And Peniel Joseph, author and scholar, on the Third Reconstruction. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:
Juneteenth: Are We Really Free?
Juneteenth is celebrated annually in commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, marking the day enslaved people in Texas were finally freed — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The national holiday is known by many names, Freedom Day, Liberation Day, Emancipation Day, and Jubilee Day.
In this hour-long audio documentary, KUT’s Miles Bloxson an Austin native, speaks to Black Austinites about the history of Juneteenth, how they celebrate the holiday, what Juneteenth means to them and explores the question, “Are We Really Free?”
Texas Standard: June 18, 2020
The high court pushes back on a DACA rollback, but leaves open many questions about the future of the program that protects hundreds of thousands of young people from deportation, we’ll take a closer look. Also, understanding Juneteenth: a firsthand reflection on its importance. Plus the first FDA approved video game: a high tech prescription to help young people with attention deficit challenges. Those stories and more today on the Texas Standard:
Regina Mason and Sean Durant (Ep. 15, 2020)
On this edition of In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. begins a conversation with Regina A. Mason, author of The Life of William Grimes, The Runaway Slave, and Sean Durant, producer and director of Gina’s Journey: The Search for William Grimes.
A Tribute to the Late Alex Haley (Ep. 8, 2019)
On this week’s In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. presents a 1988 interview with the late Alex Haley, the acclaimed writer best known for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, a classic of African American literature and Roots: The Saga of an American Family, based on Haley’s own efforts to trace his African ancestry.
Texas Standard: March 13, 2018
The Texan in charge of US diplomacy, isn’t anymore. After traveling the world, secretary of state Rex Tillerson is coming home, we’ll explore. Also, exploding parcels in the Texas capitol city. Police are trying to connect the dots, warning Austinites not to touch boxes left at front doors. And in Dallas explosions of another sort, these connected to gas mains. Lots of folks in big D asking questions, but not getting many answers. And what was the cause of the civil war? And how is it taught in Texas schools? Those stories and lots more today on the Texas Standard:
Dr. Daina Ramey Berry (Ep. 11, 2018)
This week, In Black America producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. discusses the business of slavery in the South with Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, Associate Professor of History and African Diaspora Studies at The University of Texas at Austin and author of The Price For Their Pound Of Flesh.
Texas Standard: February 5, 2018
Botched executions: that’s the claim from the attorneys of the latest man put to death in Texas. We’ll examine the details. Also it’s incredibly delicate work: manufacturing and maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons. Why a new contract could be putting that work at an Amarillo plant at risk. And Mexico’s state owned petroleum company is mired in challenges. We’ll look at why and how it’s affecting the country’s relationship with the US. Plus, in Houston an effort to preserve a bit of Latino history, and a new book preserves the history of Big Spring. Those stories and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
Tomatoes: Coalition of Immokalee Workers (Ep. 29)
“The work we do is too important to the nation. We are the people who make it possible for every meal to exist. We feed the nation and we ask, have always asked, for the possibility to feed our own families in a dignified way without having to be in a vulnerable position all the time…Right now our community is in need and that is going to be the case for a while…but then the most important thing is not how to go back to normal necessarily, because normal for us it’s poor, it’s vulnerable, it’s all the things that make it really scary when hurricanes hit our area.” –Gerardo Reyes Chavez, Coalition of Immokalee Workers
When hurricane Irma hit the Florida coast in September of 2017, one place under siege was Immokalee, FL; the center of the region’s agriculture industry and home to many immigrant and migrant families, where almost 90% of the nation’s tomatoes are harvested during the winter months.
In this edition of The Secret Ingredient, Raj Patel and Tom Philpott talk with Gerardo Reyes Chavez and Julia Perkins from The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, about not only about what is needed now in the aftermath of this devastating hurricane, but also about why this population is so vulnerable, underserved, and exploited, and what they have done to transform the food industry through the Fair Food Program.
Sidney Mintz (Extended Interview)
“Most of all I would like more coming to terms with what happened…I think what needs to be done is for all of my fellow citizens in this country to understand what happened and to be able to say, this is what was done and now we must think about how to make the playing field level for all of us in this country, and by some ways for all of us eventually in the world. Because we can’t live by ignoring that past.” –Sidney Mintz
In this bonus edition of The Secret Ingredient, Raj Patel, Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy revisit the conversation with anthropologist Sidney Mintz about his seminal work “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar In Modern History.”
The interview took place in September of 2015 and later that year on December 27th Dr. Mintz passed away.
In this extended interview, Mintz not only takes us through our prehistoric relationship to sweetness–from the bloody history of slavery and sugar production to our current state of the mass production and consumption of sweetness worldwide, but he also talks about his development as an anthropologist and thinker. He discusses his time as a student of anthropology and how he was able to study in Puerto Rico, along with who was influencing his thinking at the time. He also talks about how factories developed on the sugar plantations and the way slavery developed in the New World, as well as the role this brutal past plays in current volatile racial relations in the U.S.
As hurricanes continue to wreak havoc on the Caribbean and our hearts go out to all those who are suffering, we look to Mintz for wisdom and guidance in the days ahead.
12th & Chicon: Saving Emancipation Park
A parcel of land in the Chestnut neighborhood of East Austin was once home to the city’s annual Juneteenth celebration. Now, it’s the proposed site of a new development that neighbors say would undermine its historical significance.
(Bush) Tea: Annalee Davis (Ep. 21)
“The history of slavery in the Caribbean is traumatic. It’s a difficult legacy and I don’t think that it’s been well processed. So the serving of tea becomes this way to sort of address that. To consider, how can we move forward? What does it look like to think about healing in a space like that?” -Annalee Davis
Annalee Davis is a Barbadian artist and activist, whose work addresses the complicated legacy of slavery in the Caribbean. On this edition of The Secret Ingredient Raj Patel, Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy enjoy her serving of (Bush) Tea at the KUT studios in Austin, Texas where she was preparing to open her show This Ground Beneath My Feet – A Chorus of Bush in Rab Lands at the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her exhibition is on view until December 15, 2016.
Sugar Op-Ed: James K. Galbraith
The story of sugar in the Western world is sordid and bitter, however this past gets quickly candy coated in our day-to-day lives as consumers. In this special op-ed from the eminent economist, writer and historian James K. Galbraith, we get a peak into the sickly underbelly of the sociopolitical and economic past of sugar.
Cotton: Sven Beckert (Ep. 17)
Cotton. Not quite a food item, but a plant nonetheless with a rather complicated history and an enduring relevance in our lives. Today, a typical day cannot pass without using this pillowy crop that rules our commodified lives.
In this edition of the Secret Ingredient with Raj Patel, Tom Philpott, and Rebecca McInroy: Sven Beckert, Harvard University professor, historian, and author of the 2014 book “Empire of Cotton,” discusses the significance of cotton as the most important commodity of the 19th century, as well as the violent history cotton production has in the Southern United States, and most importantly the pivotal role cotton plays in the enterprise of capitalism we know today.
We ‘d also like to welcome a very special guest to our show for a new segment called “Letter From a Correspondent,” it’s the world-renowned economist Dr. James K. Galbraith; author of, most recently, “Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice The Destruction of Greece and the Future of Europe.”
Thomas Carter (Ep. 31, 2016)
In Black America producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. discusses the 2016 Arts and Entertainment re-make of Roots, the classic multi-generational story of slavery and emancipation, with director Thomas Carter.