Midday

Wesley Lowery, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former correspondent for the Washington Post, Boston Globe and CBS news, has written a thoughtful, imaginative and sobering book about the rise of white nationalist violence.

The book is American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress.

Lowery speaks with Tom about incidents of racial violence all over the country. His exploration is simultaneously illuminating and honoring the suffering of the victims and those close to them.

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Ayesha Rascoe is the host of Weekend Edition Sunday on NPR. She also hosts the Saturday episodes of the NPR Podcast, Up First.  Rascoe is also a proud graduate of Howard University, known in some quarters as the Harvard of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

She speaks with Tom about her new book, a collection of poignant essays from a wide range of HBCU graduates who explain the importance of their educations and institutions. The book is called HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience.

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On today's special encore edition of Midday, we revisit Tom's conversation with Heather McGhee. She is the former head of the think tank Demos and is currently the board chair of Color of Change.

Her book "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together" was recently released in a Young Adult edition. In McGhee's writing she observes that America has reached the productive and moral limit of the zero-sum economic model and encourages us to get aligned in order to turn the page on race. If we are able to do so, the rewards are plentiful. They are what McGhee calls the Solidarity Dividend.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Scott Shane joins Midday.  He retired from the New York Times in 2019, and dove into a very different kind of project: a book that tells the story of the extraordinary Thomas Smallwood. Born into slavery, Smallwood purchased his freedom and helped hundreds of other enslaved people escape their bondage in the Baltimore-Washington area. Along the way, Smallwood coined the term “underground railroad.”

Shane details the life of Smallwood in his book, Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery’s Borderland.

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Tom's guest is Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III, who served as the President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) for 30 years.

In 2019 he published a book, along with colleagues from UMBC, called The Empowered University: Shared Leadership, Culture Change, and Academic Success.  A follow-up has now been published to address another important aspect of healthy institutions titled, The Resilient University: How Purpose and Inclusion Drive Student Success. 

The new book, like its predecessor, is a handbook to help higher education leaders navigate the post-COVID issues of diversity, equity and adaptability on college campuses. 

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Theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom to share another weekly review of a local theatrical production. This week she reviews “Jane Eyre” which continues at the Classic Theatre of Maryland through February 25, 2024.

There have been many adaptations of “Jane Eyre,” including operas. What is it about this story that makes them so ripe for adaptation?

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British cellist Natalie Clein joins Midday in advance of an appearance at Howard Community College in Columbia, Md.

As she chats with Tom live from Berlin, they discuss her musical family, the communal importance of music and the need to develop a new understanding for classical music compositions.

Clein is set to appear this weekend as a part of the Candlelight Concert Society series at the Smith Theater on the campus of Howard Community College.

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Largely unknown to the general public today, Dr. Helen Brooke Taussig became internationally recognized by the medical world for transforming the lives of children in her care. As a physician at Johns Hopkins, she became a leading expert on diagnosing heart defects.

Author and journalist Patricia Meisol writes about Taussig in a new book, A Heart Afire: Helen Brooke Taussig’s Battle Against Heart Defects, Unsafe Drugs, and Injustice in Medicine. The story spotlights this pioneering doctor who revolutionized care for children with heart problems and lead the charge against birth defect causing drugs.

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Susan O’Neill, the Executive Director of the Upper Shore Regional Council discusses issues and opportunities in Queen Anne’s, Cecil and Kent counties.

About a third of the population on the Upper Shore is between the ages of 20 and 44, and the counties are making a concerted effort to attract business. We’ll ask O'Neill if those efforts are paying off.

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John Lee covers the counties for WYPR's news department. We ask him about the controversial mixed-use legislation that County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr. has proposed.

Also, should the County Council be expanded to better represent the state’s third largest jurisdiction? And, if Johnny O wins a seat in Congress, who will determine who finishes his term as the County Executive?

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.