Notes from America with Kai Wright

Elbert Lester has lived his full 94 years in Quitman County, Mississippi, on land he and his family own. That’s exceptional for black people in this area, and some family members even say the land came to them through  “40 acres and a mule.” But that's pretty unlikely, so host   Kai Wright goes on a search for the truth, and uncovers a  story about an old and fundamental question in American polit...

When the Civil War ended, America set out to do something no other country had tried before: to build the world's first multiracial democracy. More than 150 years later, we’re still trying to pull it off. Will the 2020 election bring us closer to that goal? Follow Kai Wright on Twitter @Kai_Wright . Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter) . Email us at notes@wnyc.o...

From host  Kai Wright  and the team that  brought you   The United States of Anxiety , a new show about  what's not working about our society, how we can do better and why we have to. In episode one, we investigate o ne of the longest-running public health epidemics in American history and the ongoing fight for accountability.  Subscribe to The Stakes here . Follow Kai on Twitter at  @kai_wright ....

The junior senator from New York has quickly developed a reputation as a political firebrand - one who's willing to challenge men who abuse their power, even when they're among her closest allies. Think Al Franken and Bill Clinton. Over the past decade, she went from being a newly-elected U.S. Representative appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat to become one of the Democratic Party's mo...

Before “Yes we can!”, there was “¡Sí se puede!” – the workers’ rallying cry coined by lifelong activist Dolores Huerta. In this episode, Huerta (now 88) is interviewed by her daughter Juana about the role gender played in her work and family life. Plus, what the midterm results mean going forward. This episode was produced in partnership with Latino USA , a weekly Latino news and culture program f...

Shrill, strident, bossy. These are the misogynistic slurs women often face when they run for elected office. In this episode, we meet Rena Cook, a voice coach in Oklahoma who’s training progressive, female candidates on how to subvert our inbuilt biases about women’s voices. Plus, we look back on what the 1977 National Women’s Conference did (and didn’t) do for feminism. The United States of Anxie...

Women running for office are often forced to play by different rules. We look at two candidates: Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Mikie Sherrill in suburban New Jersey. Both are Democrats fighting their way into Republican territory, but in very different ways. Plus, Michigan’s first female governor weighs in on all the “don’ts” for women politicians. This episode is a collaboration with Death, Sex, a...

Rural Texas has a reputation as solid Republican territory, but hidden within those large swathes of red are small, individual flecks of blue. In this episode, we bring you the story of a group of progressive, Texan women who are organizing — in secret — out of fear of retaliation from their neighbors. The United States of Anxiety is supported in part by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project . A...

Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells is in some ways a forgotten figure, overlooked even in black civil rights history. But her reporting on lynchings across the South was unwavering in its mission: calling America out on racial injustice. And, why black women are no longer willing to play the role of “Magical Negro” in U.S. politics. The United States of Anxiety  recently recorded a live episode ...

Jeannette Rankin had a belief: That women were essential to the health of our democracy. She became the first woman elected to Congress over a century ago. Now, Kathleen Williams is vying to follow in her footsteps. Plus, what if we filled all 435 seats in the House with women? Would it make a difference? The United States of Anxiety is supported in part by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project...

Playboy was never just about the pictures or the articles. The magazine helped create a men's liberation movement, founded on the notion that men could have anything they wanted. From Donald Trump to Harvey Weinstein, Hugh Hefner's concept of the "indoor man" has had a lasting influence. The United States of Anxiety is supported in part by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project . Additional suppo...

Paula Casey is on a mission. She wants to erect a statue in Memphis dedicated to those who fought for a woman’s right to vote more than a century ago. The problem: There’s a Confederate monument in the way. And… meet the woman who vowed to shut down women’s suffrage forever. The United States of Anxiety is supported in part by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project . Additional support for WNYC’s...

When Barbara Mikulski arrived in the Senate, all the podiums were built for men… and so was Washington's power structure. So she changed it. In this episode, Mikulski and three of her female Senate colleagues look back at Anita Hill's testimony and the 1992 elections that followed it, the last “Year of the Woman.” The United States of Anxiety is supported in part by the  Economic Hardship Reportin...

Jennifer Willoughby  was in an abusive marriage. Saily Avelenda was unhappy with her congressman, who'd held office for over two decades without facing a serious contender. They didn’t know they were about to topple two political giants. Plus, want to know the real reason the 2018 midterms could make history? It has to do with a number political scientists call the "gender gap." Note: WNYC made se...

Women gained the right to vote nearly a century ago. Yet, power is still concentrated in the hands of men. In a year that’s seen a surge of female candidates, the question at the heart of the 2018 midterms is: Who is our democracy for? Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter) . Email us at notes@wnyc.org. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone a...

A record number of women are running for office this primary season, which means there's a groundswell of energy around targeting female voters with campaign ads. For our next season of the United States of Anxiety, we’re focusing on power and gender, and we’ve partnered with ProPublica to look at how political advertising targets people of different genders differently on Facebook. Unlike broadca...

America incarcerates more people than any country in the world. It starts with kids. On any given night, roughly 53,000 young people are in some form of lockup. Nearly 60 percent are black or Latino. We all make dumb mistakes in our youth. But for these kids, those same destructive choices have a lasting impact. Mass incarceration starts young. From the team that brought you The United States of A...

We've got a story from the WNYC newsroom that we really want to share with you. Our WNYC colleagues, Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz, in partnership with ProPublica and The New Yorker investigate how President Trump's two eldest children avoided criminal charges in a probe related to the Trump SoHo.  Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter) . Email us at notes@wny...

President George W. Bush, speaking at a mosque on Sept. 17, 2001: "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace." Donald Trump, campaigning for president on March 9, 2016: "I think Islam hates us." David Yerushalmi was living in an Israeli settlement near Jerusalem speaking on the phone with his father when the planes hit the towers on Sept....

In the wake of the recent violence in Charlottesville, where a protester was killed by a white supremacist, dozens of monuments to the Confederacy are being taken down. It's an extraordinary moment in American history, and in this episode, we stop to ask: When did the Confederate flag start showing up in the North? The story brings together segregationists like Strom Thurmond with Southern rock ic...

This fourth of July, one year after the podcast began, we look back at a culture that’s made us so anxious, but also what holds us together, and where we’re going as a nation. Since nothing seems to bind Americans more together than food, we’re starting off with a key marker of American culture--pie. Kai Wright and Karen Frillmann spend some time partaking in a key American tradition-baking a cher...

As the opioid epidemic continues to increase, we take a look back  at the Sixties  when the War on Drugs, a federal effort to decrease illegal drug use, was beginning to take shape.  It was a decade  of intense change in America as political assassinations took place, the Black power movement rose, and the Vietnam War intensified.  It  was also a time that conservatives, scared about the future of...

This week we’re looking at a President Richard M. Nixon, a man obsessed with winning. Whether it was an election or becoming a great leader, he would go to great lengths to ensure his success. But Nixon felt he was surrounded by enemies, so to make sure he triumphed, he had his staff create an “Enemies List:” a document with hundreds of people he thought could do him harm. It was part of the White...

In 2016, the campaign promise to “Make America Great Again” highlighted an important cultural shift. It represented the idea that the country needed to return to its “traditions” in order to be prosperous as it was once before. This “return to values” is particularly targeted at groups like Brujas, a radical youth collective in New York City that is rejecting these traditional ideas of America thr...

There’s been much progress for the LGBTQ community over the past decade: the legal debate over same-sex marriage has been resolved, popular culture has largely embraced gay and lesbian people, and transgender people are gaining legal recognition. But as LGBTQ people make these strides, other groups have begun to claim that their  religious  rights are threatened by these cultural and political shi...