In the early 1920s, Black Americans were under the siege of direct and indirect racial violence with widespread lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and race riots across the country. And yet, the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma was thriving. Its streets were lined with successful Black-owned businesses and Black professionals. The businesses were so successful the area was dubbed “Black Wall Street.”

But one hundred years ago today, on May 31st, 1921, a white mob of several thousand murdered up to 300 Black residents, and destroyed almost every Black business, church, and home in the 35-square-block neighborhood.

What followed the massacre was a national forgetting: no reckoning, no justice, and no accountability. Black property owners were never compensated, and neither the city nor the state committed money toward rebuilding Greenwood in the aftermath. In fact, up until recently, the massacre was hardly taught or discussed at all.

Tulsa historian and prolific author and lawyer, Hannibal B. Johnson, joins us on At Liberty to mark the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre and break down its legacy.

Here at the ACLU, we’ve been working remotely from home since the pandemic closed our offices in March 2020, which means this podcast is produced, recorded, and edited, using high-speed internet; even our guests’ participation depends on it! Covid-19 has underscored just how crucial an internet connection is to participate in society. But many people like you and me may take for granted having efficient and affordable broadband access, a privilege that tens of millions of Americans are without. This is the digital divide, and it disproportionately impacts people of color and people living in rural communities.

Joining us on this episode are Baltimore high school students and organizers of SOMOS, Kimberly Vasquez and Yashira Valenzuela-Morillo, and data science and equity expert, Dr. Brandeis Marshall.

Three million Americans currently suffer from Opioid Use Disorder, or an addiction to opioids. Today, adults between the ages of 25 and 44 are more than twice as likely to die from opioid overdose than from COVID-19, yet this epidemic isn’t making the same headlines. When we zoom in on the prison population, the numbers are even more jarring. 85% of people in prison or jail have some kind of substance use disorder, compared with 9% of the general population, yet these Americans are less likely to get access to the care they need to treat their addiction.

Most prisons and jails don’t let people take prescription medications like methadone to treat their disorder while serving time. This kind of treatment has been shown to reduce deaths from opioid overdose up to 50% by preventing withdrawal symptoms during recovery.

In this episode, we’ll take a look at the devastating impact of denying these treatments in our prisons and jails. We're joined by Christine Finnegan, Louis Lamoureux, and Beth Schwartzapfel.

1 in 4 Americans are unbanked or underbanked. That’s because banks across the country are closing branches or they’re penalizing those who don’t have large savings. This means that 64 million Americans -- disproportionately Black and Brown -- can’t easily access basic financial services and are forced to pay thousands a year in fees for alternatives.

But one solution to this disparity is within our reach, it’s actually just down the street from you: the post office.

The Postal Service has the infrastructure to provide basic financial services at all of its branches. With an office in every ZIP code nationwide and trust within the community, banking at the most accessible institution in America could create a public option needed to put millions of families in greater control of their finances.

Joining us today to break down the specifics of Postal Banking is Rakim Brooks. Rakim is a Senior Campaign Strategist at the ACLU and is managing our new Systemic Equality campaign.

On April 28th, the Supreme Court will hear arguments for a case that has big implications for student free speech. The case involves then 14-year-old Brandi Levy, a cheerleader at Mahanoy Area High School in Pennsylvania, and her post on the social media platform, Snapchat. One of her cheerleading coaches saw the post, which used an expletive, and suspended her from the team for a year – even though Brandi had posted on a weekend and off school property. Brandi and her family sued the school for violating her First Amendment rights. Brandi has prevailed in two lower federal court rulings but now, the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to uphold the win or rule for the school.

Brandi and her father, Larry, join us on this episode, as well as Vera Eidelman, Staff Attorney at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology project, who is working on Brandi's case.

Last year, the world watched Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kill George Floyd in plain sight after arresting him for an alleged counterfeit bill at a convenience store. The footage released from the encounter sparked an international movement as protesters took to the streets for months calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality.

On Tuesday, after weeks of arguments, the jury released a verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial: guilty on all three counts.

In this episode, we hear from Minneapolis demonstrators Sierra, Osman, and Broderick who react to the verdict as it's happening and then we call the ACLU's Policing Policy Advisor, Paige Fernandez, to hear her reaction.

On Sunday, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was shot and killed by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota after being pulled over for traffic violations. The violations? He had expired tags on his license and air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror of his car. This story is heartbreakingly familiar. Just a year ago the country erupted in protest over the death of George Floyd after police arrested him for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store. Police interactions with citizens shouldn’t end in death, and yet hundreds are dying at the hands of police every year. In order to protect and serve Black Americans, we need immediate solutions.

Joining this episode are protesters Aja, Melina, and Emilaysia in Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park, as well as the ACLU’s Policing Policy Advisor, Paige Fernandez, and Senior Staff Attorney of the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, Somil Trivedi.

This week, we are revisiting one of our favorite episodes featuring a conversation with the filmmakers of the documentary, “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.” Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham use archival footage and interviews to tell the story of a summer camp that seeded a disability rights movement, a movement whose history few know well even though almost 50 percent of Americans live with at least one disability.

The film was just nominated for an Oscar in the category of best documentary feature. Enjoy this gem from the At Liberty archive.

The Arkansas legislature just passed HB 1570, a bill that would ban gender-confirming health care for trans youth in the state. This comes just one day after Arkansas’ Governor Asa Hutchinson, vetoed the bill amidst pleas from doctors, social workers, and parents of transgender youth. Arkansas is the first state in the country to pass such a bill.

We spoke with Chase Strangio, ACLU’s Deputy Director for Transgender Justice, to get his take on what happened.

From a Capitol insurrection to multiple mass shootings, recent violence is prompting an old debate: Does the U.S. need a domestic terrorism law? And if not, how do we quell this violence? Our guest today, Hina Shamsi, the Director of the National Security Project at the ACLU, says we don’t need to look far to see how existing laws that claim to target domestic terrorism, in reality, grant the government unprecedented power to surveil and criminalize communities of color. These laws have been weaponized to harm some of the same communities that are suffering disproportionately from violence in America.

She joins us today to break down the debate.