Megan Greenwell's new book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, tells the story of four people whose lives were upended by private equity. This hour, we learn about the business of private equity, and how companies that many people don't understand play a big role in our lives.

GUEST:

• Megan Greenwell: Freelance journalist and author of Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream.

This episode was produced with help from interns Coco Cooley and Isaac Moss

Disrupted is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

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1963 changed the course of U.S. history.

It included the assassinations of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and President John F. Kennedy.

1963 was also the year of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech that day. Future congressman John Lewis also spoke.

This hour, we’re breaking down a pivotal year in the civil rights movement with Peniel E. Joseph.

GUEST:

Peniel E. Joseph: Professor of History; Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution.

Coco Cooley and Isaac Moss contributed to this episode. 

Disrupted is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While many Black Americans have been celebrating Juneteenth since 1865, the holiday has often been overlooked by non-Black Americans. This hour, we look at the tradition of the holiday and recognize its importance as a time to learn more about Black history in the U.S.

Alliah L. Agostini is a mom and children’s book author. Her books The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States and The Juneteenth Cookbook teach the history and joy of Juneteenth.

Distinguished Professor Dr. William Darity explains the history of reparations and today's racial wealth gap.

GUESTS:

• Alliah L. Agostini: children’s book author - The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States and The Juneteenth Cookbook

• Dr. William Darity: Samuel DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Duke University. Co-author, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century

This episode originally aired on June 19, 2024. 

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Historian Martha S. Jones was looking through a book one day when she found a section mentioning her grandfather. It referred to her grandfather as white. But in reality, her grandfather’s father was a free man of color, and his mother was born enslaved. This wasn’t the first time her family’s racial identity was questioned, so she started writing down her version of her family’s history. It's that history, and her family's relationship to racial identity, that she explores in her new book The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir.

GUEST:

• Martha S. Jones: The Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History and Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Her latest book is The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir.

Special thanks to our interns Angelica Gajewski and Kathy Wang.

This episode originally aired on March 28, 2025.

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We hear a lot about politically engaged college students, but we don’t always hear about politically engaged high school students.

This hour, we learn how high school students past and present have fought for change in their communities. We talk to two current students at University High School of Science and Engineering in Hartford about testifying before lawmakers to increase their access to transportation. We'll also hear about high school activism of the 1960s and 1970s, including how the FBI monitored students.

GUESTS:

• Nariyah Lindsay: High School Senior and President of the Social Justice League at University High School of Science and Engineering in Hartford

• Oluwaseyi Oluborode: High School Junior and Vice President of the Social Justice League at University High School of Science and Engineering in Hartford

• Aaron G. Fountain Jr.: Historian who researches high school protests. His book High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, & FBI Surveillance in Postwar America comes out in December.

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It has been five years since a Minneapolis Police Officer murdered George Floyd and the massive protest movement that followed. This hour, we’re reflecting on what has and has not changed in those five years.

We'll look at the protests in historical context to try to understand the ways they succeeded and failed. We’ll also talk about whether have been changes in the rate of police violence since 2020.

GUESTS:

• Alvin Tillery Jr.: Professor of Political Science and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University

• Jamiles Lartey: Staff writer at The Marshall Project. He is primary author of their weekly "Closing Argument" newsletter. His work focuses on the criminal justice system.

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Student journalists have been in the spotlight in recent years. In 2024, amidst massive on-campus protests, people turned to student outlets like Columbia University’s WKCR for the most up to date reporting. But practicing journalism as a student comes with risks.

Those risks have become even more clear in recent weeks. Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained in March after the Trump administration revoked her visa. U.S. District Judge William Sessions ordered her release on May 9th, saying the only evidence given for her detention was an op-ed she had written for her school paper.

This hour, we’re talking about the role student journalists play in covering campuses and the communities around them. We discuss the risks student journalists face and they way their role is sometimes overlooked.

GUESTS:

• Gary Green: Executive Director of The Student Press Law Center, an organization that supports first amendment rights for student journalists

• Anika Arora Seth: Editor in Chief of the Yale Daily News from spring 2023 to spring 2024

• Maria Shaikh: Managing Editor at The Retrograde, an independent student newspaper at the University of Texas at Dallas

• Macy Hanzlik-Barend: News & Arts director at WKCR, Columbia University’s independent student-run radio station

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April 30th marked 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War. The war looms large in U.S. culture— it’s been the subject of countless books and movies.

These works have often focused on American soldiers, but not so much on the experiences of everyday Vietnamese people living through the war.

Artist and writer Thi Bui’s 2017 bestselling graphic memoir The Best We Could Do started as an attempt to change that. It tells her family’s story of living through the war and ultimately leaving her birth country to come to the United States.

More recently, Thi co-edited an issue of the literary journal McSweeney's featuring work by artists from the Vietnamese diaspora. She talks to us about both those projects and reflects on her experiences as a mother.

GUESTS:

• Thi Bui: cartoonist, writer and artist. She’s author of the bestselling and award-winning graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do. Most recently she co-edited an issue of the literary journal McSweeney’s that was released to mark 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War.

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We hear a lot of of debate around sex and sexuality from our political leaders these days. Proposed legislation in areas like reproductive rights and education are constantly in the news. And while that debate may seem intense today, it isn’t new. Americans have long argued over which kinds of sex are, and aren’t “acceptable.”

You need to understand the past to understand the present, as the saying goes. And according to historian Rebecca L. Davis, there are a lot of misconceptions about the past. This hour, we return to our conversation about her new book Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America. She’ll explain the surprising ways Americans have understood intimate relations and even share a touching story that took place right here in Connecticut.

GUEST:

• Rebecca L. Davis: Miller Family Endowed Early Career Professor of History at the University of Delaware and Professor of Women and Gender Studies. Her latest book is Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America.

You can listen to the interview with Jason Stanley that Professor Davis mentioned in this episode on our website.

This episode originally aired on December 13, 2024.

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Oral history preserves the past by recording people’s real voices. It’s not just about recording the stories people tell. It’s also about the way they tell them. Oral history is about memory and humanity. It’s a form of history that anyone can be a part of.

This hour, we’re talking to two Connecticut residents about the stories they have preserved through oral history.

Author and educator Mary Romney-Schaab talks about her father's experience as a Black person imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. And Amanda Rivera, a PhD candidate in American Studies at Yale University, discusses the history of Connecticut's Puerto Rican communities.

GUESTS:

• Mary Romney-Schaab: retired teacher and author of An Afro-Caribbean in the Nazi Era: From Papiamentu to German. The book details her father’s experience in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II

• Amanda Rivera: PhD candidate in the Department of American Studies at Yale University. Her work explores activism and education reform in Puerto Rican communities in southern Connecticut.

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