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 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, Elon Musk’s targeting of left voices on Twitter, the collapse of Manchin’s […]

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 begins by discussing what his idea of the “ghost line” entails, […]

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 violence and influential policy, has been obscured by a […]

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 emancipation, and how their pre-Civil War work has been erased over […]

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 1500s, Gordon-Reed walks us through the arrival of slavery in […]