What can we do when the weight of the world becomes too heavy?

Amid a gun violence epidemic that’s ravaging communities across the US, attacks on American history curriculums in classrooms, and failures from elected officials to protect voting and abortion rights, American democracy is in crisis. 

But Michael McBride, a pastor and community organizer, is showing us what a practice of persistence during times of despair can look like. With more than 20 years in ministry, McBride bridges the church and community organizations to work on some of the biggest systemic issues of our times: mass incarceration, gun violence, police reform. Regarded as a national faith leader, McBride took part in the Ferguson uprisings and the many that followed. And today, he continues to lend training and support to young people and religious organizations working towards Black liberation. 

On this episode of Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with Pastor McBride about how to soothe the enduring grief of this moment and what we can do to push onwards.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

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Further Listening: 

• The Weight of Bearing Witness
• A Word from the Nap Bishop

Where does the video of George Floyd’s murder fit into the long history of the push for racial justice? 

Journalist and professor Marc Lamont Hill has just released a new book, co-authored with historian Todd Brewster. Titled Seen & Unseen, the work explores the ways in which technology and visual media have shaped our understanding of race in the past and how they are being used as tools in the fight for racial justice today. 

The impetus for Hill and Brewster’s book was the murder of George Floyd and the uprising it sparked. Video of Floyd’s murder was captured by Darnella Frazier, using her cell phone’s camera. She posted the video to Facebook, where it quickly went viral, sparking the largest protest movement in U.S. history.

On this episode of Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with fellow journalist and author Marc Lamont Hill about his new book, George Floyd, and the uses of technology and social media in the fight for racial justice.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

Further Listening: 

• After George Floyd
• The Weight of Bearing Witness
• Into an American Uprising: Can You Hear Us Now?

On Saturday, May 14, a white 18-year-old drove to a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., and killed ten people in a racist attack. The gunman was alone, and reporting has revealed that he allegedly posted a manifesto with racist theories and his plans to kill Black people online. 

Law enforcement officials and the media often describe these kinds of perpetrator as lone wolves. But the work of white supremacy is never lonely. It’s propagated by social media, cable television pundits, and even politicians. 

And in the wake of this recent extremism, the Black community in Buffalo is left trying to survive the grieve. 

“There are no words. There are no solutions. There is no consolation. The community's reeling. Somebody walked into a grocery store and shot up a bunch of our grannies and aunties,” says India Walton, a community leader and former mayoral candidate in Buffalo. India speaks with Trymaine Lee about the shooting, the structural racism and white violence in Buffalo that has kept Black residents segregated and vulnerable, and how she will continue to fight for her community. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

Further Reading and Viewing:

• Biden calls Buffalo shooting 'terrorism,' says 'white supremacy is a poison'
• The Buffalo shooting is part of a global network of white nationalist terror
   

It’s been almost ten years since the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing Trayvon Martin, sparked the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in 2013. A year later, the police killing of Michael Brown turned the hashtag into a movement. Then in 2020, the world witnessed the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter exploded into a global phenomenon. 

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest, and as activists took center stage, people donated millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. But it’s been a turbulent ride. In 2021, when it was announced that the foundation had received $90 million in funding, many local BLM chapters and families of victims of police violence, started calling for more support and financial transparency. And a recent New York Magazine article unveiled that the foundation spent $6 million on a Los Angeles home which triggered new accusations of mishandling of funds. 

This week on Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Patrisse Cullors, one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the former executive director of the BLM Global Network Foundation. After the national foundation received an influx of money, Cullors became the face of the foundation. Now she’s under fire from right-wing media, as well as other movement leaders, who are questioning her leadership and financial decisions. Cullors admits that she has made some mistakes, but she maintains that she has done nothing wrong. So she’s sitting down with Into America to talk about what accountability means to her, and how she plans to move forward with the lessons she’s learned.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Former BLM foundation leader denies allegations of money mishandling
• BLM’s Patrisse Cullors to step down from movement foundation

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, also known as the LA Uprising. Before the uprising, tensions in South L.A. were at an all-time high from years of untamed police abuse, gang violence, and strained relations between the Black and Korean American communities. 

In 1991, a Black teenager named Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by Korean storekeeper Soon Ja Du after she accused Harlins of stealing a bottle of juice. Around the same time, the Black community was also stunned by the video of four white police officers brutally beating Rodney King. A year later, on April 29, 1992, all four officers were acquitted and the Black community of South Los Angeles reached its breaking point. The acquittal set off five days of violence, destruction, and looting, with Koreatown being the main target. 

Now, 30 years later, several Black and Korean communities are commemorating the anniversary of the riots by reflecting on the past, and moving forward together. 

This week on Into America, Trymaine Lee speaks with Rodney King’s daughter, Lora King, about her relationship with her father and how she’s continuing his legacy through the Rodney King Foundation. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Korean American-Black conflict during L.A. riots was overemphasized by media, experts say
• Watch ‘Riot 92: A Los Angeles Story'
  
   

According to a draft Supreme Court opinion obtained by Politico, the Supreme Court stands poised to overturn Roe v. Wade during its next session. If this happens, it’s estimated as many as 23 states will enact some type of abortion ban, some of which will go into effect almost immediately. And Black people could be hardest hit. 

Black women seek abortions at a higher rate than any other group. And that, coupled with the knowledge that infant and maternal mortality rates are higher for Black people, could create a dangerous situation for Black people forced to carry pregnancies to term. 

Last fall, Into America took a closer look at the disparate impact abortion restrictions would have in Texas, following the state’s passage of SB-8, which banned abortion after six weeks. In light of the news this week, we’re re-airing this episode as we consider all that’s at stake with this upcoming decision.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

Further Reading and Viewing:

• NBC Exclusive: Abortion clinic at center of Mississippi case may move to N.M. if Roe is overturned
• For many Republicans, ending Roe is the first step, not the last
• Supreme Court confirms draft opinion on Roe v. Wade is real, will investigate source of leak

Harvard University is confronting its ties to slavery in a new way. In a sweeping report published this week, the university detailed how the school profited from slavery and acknowledged that more than 70 people were enslaved by Harvard leaders, faculty, and staff between 1636 and 1783 when the state of Massachusetts outlawed the practice.

Last year, Into America explored whether the school understood the nuances of Blackness within its student body, because even though Harvard is one of the Blackest Ivy League schools, Black students still make up just 11 percent of the student body. And it’s estimated that less than a third of its Black students are descended from people in enslaved the US. 

With the release of this new report, we wanted to share Trymaine Lee’s conversation with three students from the African diaspora on campus: Mariah Norman, who is a Generational African American, Ife Adedokun, whose parents are Nigerian immigrants, and Kimani Panthier, whose parents immigrated from Jamaica. The group talked about what it’s like to be Black at Harvard and how they want the university to better support them. 

(Originally released December 2, 2021)

Further Reading and Viewing: 

• Harvard attempts to reckon with historical ties to slavery in new report
• Watch Trymaine Lee on MSNBC 
   

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an iconic American artist who rose to fame in the downtown New York City cultural scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. By 18-years-old, Basquiat had already begun spray-painting tantalizing texts on the walls of lower Manhattan under the pseudonym SAMO. In the years to come, Basquiat would transition from street tagger to gallery artist, taking the world by storm. Today, Basquiat’s legacy looms over us, larger than ever. His images and symbols grace Uniqlo t-shirts and Tiffany & Co jewelry campaigns. In 2017, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s powerful 1982 painting of a skull was purchased for $110.5 million, becoming the sixth most expensive work ever sold at auction.

But has Basquiat’s pop cultural significance eclipsed the artist’s place in art history? During his lifetime, he struggled to gain acceptance from critics in the predominantly-white art world. And of the more than 800 paintings Basquiat produced in the several years before his untimely death, there are only two of these works available for viewing in a permanent museum collection in New York City. The vast majority of Basquiat works live in private collections, making them hard to access.  

This week on Into America, host Trymaine Lee speaks with Basquiat’s former bandmate and friend, Michael Holman, about the young artist’s coming of age in 1980s New York. Then we explore the crisis of Basquiat’s archive with American art historian Jordana Saggese. And finally we take a trip to Basquiat’s childhood and speak with Basquiat’s younger sisters, Jeanine Heriveaux and Lisane Basquiat, to unfold their early relationship and a new April 2022 exhibition they are curating in honor of their late brother.

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all with the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

Further Listening:

• Harlem on My Mind: Jacob Lawrence
• The Sun Rises in the East

Down on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, there is a small, close-knit Black community named Pointe à La Hache. There, oyster harvesting is a culture and a heritage that has been passed down for generations. But decades of storms, natural disasters, oil spills, and racist policies have threatened this way of life. Now, the state’s coastal restoration plans could end it. 

According to experts, Louisiana loses more than a football field of its jagged coastline every 100 minutes. This leaves coastal communities at risk from rising sea levels, and cities like New Orleans more vulnerable to storms. To fight back, the state has created a 50-year, $50 billion plan to save the disappearing land, which includes diverting water from the Mississippi River through the wetlands around Pointe à La Hache, so sediment from the waters can build up along the shorelines.

The state and environmental advocacy groups believe these diversions are the most effective, cost-efficient, and least intrusive solution to save the coast. But oystermen and other fishermen in Pointe à La Hache say the influx of freshwater will disrupt the brackish waters their oysters need to survive. 

This week on Into America, we travel to Louisiana to speak with Byron Encalade, a third-generation oysterman from Pointe à La Hache, and founder of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, a mostly Black union that represents oystermen of color. Encalade and other Black oystermen have been hit time and again, from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to the 2010 BP oil spill, but Encalade says these diversion plans will destroy what’s left of Pointe à La Hache.

But not all is lost yet. Keslyn and Derrayon Williams, shrimper brothers and owners of Lil Wig’s Seafood and Catering Boat, are still fighting for their family's legacy. They grew up in Pointe à La Hache and remember it as a thriving economic fishing community. Now, they have to travel hours away and compete with bigger boats just to catch shrimp. Derrayon believes if the state stopped these diversions, their community could be restored, but Kelsyn thinks it might be too late. 

For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. 

Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.

Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected].

Further Reading and Listening: 

• Read Trymaine’s reporting on this topic from the New York Times
• Into Dirty Air