African American History

Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speaks with Manisha Sinha, Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut, to discuss her recent book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on the major death toll coming out of ...
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Dr. Melvin Rogers, professor of political science and associate director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics, & Economics at Brown University, to discuss his recent book The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Poli...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with Dr. Robert Greene, assistant professor of history at Claflin University in South Carolina & president of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) , to discuss his writing on Juneteenth. Then, they speak with Jaz Brisack, co-founder of St...
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Tracie McMillan, editor at Capitol & Main covering worker organizing, to discuss her recent book The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America.  First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Benny Gantz’s split with Netanyahu over Is...
Happy Monday! Sam is back from vacation! He and Emma speak with Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent at Mother Jones, to discuss his recent book Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Israel...
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Dylan Penningroth, professor of Law and History at the University of California, Berkeley, to discuss his recent book Before The Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Iran’s military-specific retaliatio...
Happy Monday! Emma speaks with Abdul Alkalimat, professor of African American Studies & library and information science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, to discuss his book The History of Black Studies. First, Emma runs through updates on the rising Gaza death count, the crippl...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with independent journalist Erin Reed, author of the Erin In The Morning newsletter on SubStack, to discuss the state of anti-trans legislation moving its way around the country in 2024. Then, they speak with Margie Mason & Robin McDowell, investigative repor...
It’s Hump Day! Sam and Emma speak with Joseph Jewell, professor and department head of black studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, to discuss his recent book White Man’s Work: Race and Middle-Class Mobility into the Progressive Era.
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Robert P. Jones, President and Founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), to discuss his recent book The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future. First, Sam and Emma break down what has taken place over the wee...
It’s another EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Blair LM Kelley, director of The Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, to discuss her recent book Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class. First, Emma runs through updates on Biden’s call f...
It’s an EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Orisanmi Burton, assistant professor of anthropology at American University, to discuss his recent book Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. Then, she’s joined by David Vine to discuss his project en...
It’s Hump Day! Sam speaks with Yohuru Williams, historian and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, and Michael Lansing, Professor of History at Augsburg University, to discuss their documentary project on the history of the Minneapolis Police Departm...
Happy Monday! Sam is BACK from vacation. He and Emma speak with Richard Kahlenberg, education & housing policy consultant and non-resident fellow at Georgetown University, to discuss his recent book Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See. First, Sam an...
It’s Hump Day! First, Emma speaks with attorney Stephen Bright and James Kwak, law professor at the University of Connecticut, to discuss their recent book The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Insistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts. Then, she’s joined by writer Katherine ...
It’s an EmMajority Report Thursday! She speaks with Sara Marcus, assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, about her recent book Political Disappointment: A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis. Then, Emma is joined by Zoya Teirstein, climate change and he...
Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak to freelance journalist David Neiwert to discuss his recent book The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right’s Assault on American Democracy. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Israel disempowering their Supreme Court, offensives in Moscow and Odessa, the r...
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 bec...
Happy Monday! Sam hosts Kidada E. Williams, associate professor of history at Wayne State University, to discuss her recent book I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction. Sam begins the show by talking about the upcoming debt ceiling battle, and how i...
The MR Crew is back! Sam sits down for a pre-taped conversation with Peniel Joseph, joint professor of public affairs and history at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss his recent book The Third Reconstruction:America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century First, Emma...
Sam and Emma host Gerald Horne, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, to discuss his recent book The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of U.S. Fascism. Then later in the show, they’re joined by  Camille Gix, member of ...
Emma hosts Anastasia Curwood, Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, to discuss her recent book Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics. Then, she’s joined by labor and politics reporter Cole Stangler, to discuss the recent worker protests in France.  First, Emma ...
Sam and Emma host Dale Kretz, visiting assistant professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to discuss his recent book Administering Freedom: The State of Emancipation after the Freedmen’s Bureau. First, Sam and Emma dive into updates on the US’ sanctions on Venezuela, E...
Sam and Emma host Donald Yacovone, Associate at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, to discuss his recent book Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity. First Emma dives into Lula taking a lead ...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam hosts Ben Dixon of The Benjamin Dixon Show to round up the week in news. Then he is joined by Matthew Film Guy! First, Sam runs through updates on the DOJ’s appeal on Trump’s Special Master ruling, more investigations into the Save America PAC and Steve Bannon’s fraud char...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam hosts Heather Digby Parton, contributing writer at Salon.com and proprietor of the blog Hullabaloo to round up the week in news. Then Sam is joined by Jason Myles, co-host of the This Is Revolution podcast. First, Sam covers the confirmation that Ginni Thomas was conspirin...
Emma hosts Dorothy Roberts, professor of Law, Sociology, and Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss her recent book Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families–and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World. Emma first covers yesterday’s simultaneous mass shoot...
Sam hosts Kris Manjapra, history professor at Tufts University, to discuss his recent book Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation, on how exploitation and racial caste systems that are buoyed by the lasting legacies of emancipations. Professor Manjapra be...
It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Pascal Robert, co-host of the This Is Revolution podcast, to wrap up the week in news.
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...
Sam and Emma host Kyle T. Mays, Assistant Professor of African American Studies at UCLA, to discuss his recent book An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States, which attempts to reframe a history of US capitalism around as a system built around the dispossession and enslavement of indigenous...
Happy MLK Day! Sam chats with Gerald Horne, professor of history and African American studies at the University of Houston to discuss his recent book The Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering and the Political Economy of Boxing.
Sam hosts William A. Blair, Professor of Middle American History at Penn State University, to discuss his recent book The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight Over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction, on how the true histories of reconstruction, both in the horrible viole...
Sam sits down with Marcia Chatelain, professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University, to discuss her recent book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, on McDonald’s, fast food franchises, and their ties to the success and failures of Black capitalism. 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 Bl...
Emma hosts Orville Vernon Burton, Professor of Pan-African Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and Computer Science at Clemson University, as well as civil rights attorney Armand Derfner, to discuss their recent book Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court, on the progressions, and regressions...
Emma hosts Karen L. Cox, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, to discuss her recent book No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice, on the history and reckoning over confederate monuments in the US. Professor Cox brings us b...
Emma hosts Jon N. Hale, Associate Professor of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois, to discuss his recent book The Choice We Face: How Segregation, Race, and Power Have Shaped America’s Most Controversial Education Reform Movement, on the misrepresentation...
Emma hosts Van Gosse, Professor and Associate Chair of History at Franklin & Marshall University, to discuss his recent book “The First Reconstruction: Black Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War,” on the political role of Black folks before their constitutional emancipatio...
Sam and Emma host Cristina Beltran, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at New York University, to discuss her recent book, Cruelty As Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy, on the project of whiteness that has built the United States, and why the backlash t...
Emma hosts Jim Freeman, director of the Social Movement Support Lab, to discuss his new book, Rich Thanks to Racism: How the Ultra-Wealthy Profit From Racial Injustice, to discuss the hidden strategies behind systemic racism in America. Freeman walks through his concept of strategic racism and ho...
Sam and Emma are back from the July 4th holiday with Smithsonian curator Jon Grinspan, author of his latest book The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915 on the last time partisanship was the primary driver in American democracy. Grinspan, inspired by the preced...
Sam hosts Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale Historian David Blight to discuss his recent biography of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, and how the Reconstruction era lives on in our contemporary politics. Sam and Blight take a deep dive into Frederick Douglass the orator and ...
Sam and Emma host Duke University Economist Sandy Darity to discuss his latest book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century on addressing the racial wealth gap in America. After covering the modern state of the stratification, they look into the origins...
Emma hosts today’s Majority Report featuring a recent interview Sam recorded with Harvard history professor Annette Gordon-Reed on her new book, On Juneteenth, which explores the Texas roots and national consciousness of the holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the South. Beginning in the 15...
Sam and Emma host professor of African American studies Carol Anderson to discuss her latest book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America on how the right to bear arms has been a means to suppress black Americans. Anderson details how black Americans throughout history have organiz...
Sam and Emma are back from their Memorial Day break to discuss the top stories kicking off this week, from the anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre to the Texas Democrats’ exit, and what we hope Democrats have learned from the failures of the January 6th commission. They begin by exploring the risin...
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 eve...
Sam and Emma host Heather McGhee, a senior fellow at Demos, to discuss her new book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together on how the legacies of slavery and systemic racism hurt all Americans in material ways. They explore her concept of “drain pool politics,” ...
Emma hosts today’s Majority Report, featuring an interview Sam recorded with Jonathan Daniel Wells, University of Michigan Professor of History, on his latest book “The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War.” They explore slavery’s deep ties to the fina...
Sam and Emma host Elizabeth Catte, author of Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia to discuss how Virginia’s embrace of eugenics allowed the state government to control its poor white population, land rights, and why we’ve memory-holed our eugenics past.
Sam and Emma host author and activist Victoria Law to discuss her new book, “Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration, on how our perception of incarceration has been wrong from the start. Sam, Emma and Victoria explore our carceral state and how racism and social contr...
Sam and Emma host Joshua D. Rothman, University of Alabama professor of history, to discuss his new book, The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America, the myths around the slave trade industry, the deep ties between slavery and US imperialism, and Racial capitalism’s explo...
Sam hosts writer and political analyst Jared Yates Sexton to discuss his new book, American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World But Failed Its People, and why the foundational myths of American Exceptionalism have such a hold on the populace. Sam and Jared explore the stories Americans told th...
Sam hosts Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale Historian David Blight to discuss his recent biography of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, and how the Reconstruction era lives on in our contemporary politics. Sam and Blight take a deep dive into Frederick Douglass the orator and ...
Sam hosts USC Law Professor Jody Armour (@niggatheory) to discuss his new book N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law and the importance of eradicating anti-black bias in America.
Sam is joined by Martha S. Jones (@marthasjones_), Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, to discuss her new book, ‘Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.’
Journalist and historian Richard Kreitner joins Sam to discuss “Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union.”
Eddie Glaude Jr. joins the show once again to discuss his new book, Begin Again: “James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.”
Sam hosts journalist Jean Guerrero to discuss her new book Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda on how Stephen Miller thrived in the Trump administration and successfully implemented a campaign of terror against immigrants in America.
Sam hosts historian Gerald Horne to discuss his new book The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century. 
The Majority Report returns this week as Sam hosts journalist and author Colin Woodard (@woodardcolin) to discuss his new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, on how 19th-century intellectuals forged the myth of national unity.
Sam hosts Garrett Felber, professor of history at the University of Mississippi, to discuss his new book, Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State. Sam and Felber discuss the organizing tactics used by black nationalists from within the car...
Sam hosts NY-14 congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) to discuss her June 23rd primary and what to expect from the progressive caucus before the next round of Covid-19 relief. Historian Gerald Horne joins Sam to discuss the history of Juneteenth in the age of Trump.
Sam hosts environmental lawyer Barbara Freese to discuss her new book, Industrial-Strength Denial: Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible, from the Slave Trade to Climate Change. Sam and Freese discuss how the psychology of corporate denial has remained the same over centuries. ...
Sam hosts Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) of The Benjamin Dixon Show and David Roth (@david_j_roth) of the New Republic to discuss this week’s top stories and the continued protests against police brutality.
Sam hosts Touré F. Reed, professor of history at Illinois State University, to discuss his new book Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism and the reforms needed to address racial inequality and disparities.
Sam hosts historian Walter Johnson to discuss his new book The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States and how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted black Americans. Johnson describes the history of St. Louis and his theory of western anti-black raci...
Sam hosts Chryl Laird (@chryllaird), Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bowdoin College, to discuss her book Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, which explains why African-Americans are the most unified voting bloc in American history.
Sam hosts Howard Bryant (@hbryant42), senior writer at ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine, to discuss his new book, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field. 
Political scientist Davin L. Phoenix (@Davin_Phoenix) joins the Majority Report to discuss his book, The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotion in Politics, and explains how anger animates political participation amongst different demographic groups in America.
Happy Friday! Sam hosts author Joe William Trotter to discuss his new book Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America. Sam also interviews progressive candidate Jessica Scarane, who is running in the Democratic primary for Delware’s Senate seat currently held by Chris Coons.
Happy Thursday! Sam hosts Thom Hartmann to discuss his new book The Hidden History of the War on Voting: Who Stole Your Vote and How to Get It Back. 
As the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump continues into its eighth day, Sam is joined by historian Brenda Wineapple to discuss the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and her latest book, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation. 
Today, legal historian Martha S. Jones joins us to discuss her new book, “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America.”
On today’s show, Joshua Specht (@joshspecht), author of Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America. The story of beef production in America begins at the cattle ranch, which was a tool of conquest in the West. In some places, cattle ranching resembled a paramilitary op...
Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) joins the MR Crew in studio to discuss his recent piece in Slate, “Where Taking the Concerns of Racists Seriously Has Gotten Us,” and to recap the week’s biggest stories.
Jonathan M. Metzl (@JonathanMetzl), director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University, joins us to discuss his book, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland.
Matt Stroud (@MattStroud), author of “Thin Blue Lie: The Failure of High-Tech Policing,” joins us.
Matthew Blackwell (@Matt_Blackwell), Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University, joins us to discuss his co-authored book, “Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics.”
Historian of paramilitary social movements and author of “Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America,” Kathleen Belew joins us today to discuss her book. How a 1979 Greensboro, NC was a spiritual precursor to the recent Charlottesville, Virginia white supremacist meet-u...
Journalist and author Reniqua Allen (@rnz1) joins us to discuss her new book, It Was All A Dream: How A New Generation is Navigating the Broken Promise of America.
Historian Jack Kelly, author of The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America, joins us.
Andrew Delbanco, professor of American Studies at Columbia University, joins us to discuss his book, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War.
John Sides (@johnmsides), professor of political science at George Washington University and co-author of Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America, joins us.
Organizer and movement historian LA Kauffman (@LAKauffman) joins us to discuss her new book, How to Read a Protest: The Art of Organizing and Resistance.