Notes from America with Kai Wright

Do you consider yourself part of the Democratic Party? We want to hear from you! Tell us what the Democratic Party can do for YOU, in YOUR life? Record a voice memo and send it to us at [email protected]. 

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Incarcerated youth do what it takes to survive in prison everyday, in the hopes of making it back home someday. In this final installment of our presentation of Caught, reporter Jared Marcelle finds Z behind bars again - following a misstep while on parole - and chronicles how solitary confinement and years of uncertainty have changed his life.

Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice is hosted by Kai Wright and supported, in part, by the Anne Levy Fund, Margaret Neubart Foundation, the John and Gwen Smart Family Foundation, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

‘You Just Sit There and Wait for the Next Day to Come’ was originally published on March 28, 2018. Listen to more episodes here.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

In this second installment of our presentation of Caught, then-16-year-old Z grapples with a reality that incarcerated youth with mental health needs face everyday: support comes at a cost. Reporter Jared Marcelle continues to follow his journey through the criminal justice system and juvenile justice lawyer and poet Dwayne Betts sheds light on a vicious catch-22.

Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice is hosted by Kai Wright and supported, in part, by the Anne Levy Fund, Margaret Neubart Foundation, the John and Gwen Smart Family Foundation, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

'They Look at Me Like a Menace' was originally published on March 14, 2018. Listen to more episodes here.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

The United States locks up more people - and more children - than any country in the world. Two years ago, Caught delved into the experiences of youth whose worst decisions led them to be entrapped within the criminal justice system, often for life. We’re revisiting the story of then-16-year-old Z, as he awaits a decision that could change his life forever and details how he landed in a detention center in Queens. Also, juvenile justice lawyer and poet Dwayne Betts reflects on his own experience with incarceration as a teenager and how a dangerous storm that brewed in the Nineties continues to cost young lives.

Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice is hosted by Kai Wright and supported, in part, by the Anne Levy Fund, Margaret Neubart Foundation, the John and Gwen Smart Family Foundation, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

'I Just Want You to Come Home' was originally published on March 12, 2018. Listen to more episodes here.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Being Black in Italy means you’re likely NOT born a citizen. Until the Civil War, the same was true for Black people in the United States. Citizenship was reserved for white people only. These histories aren’t so disconnected. 

Black American reporter Ngofeen Mputubwele (New Yorker Radio Hour) tells the story of Black Italians like Bellamy Ogak of Afroitalian Souls and the multi-year campaign for birthright citizenship -- connecting the dots between race, nationality, and white supremacy in our two countries. What does it take to belong to the place you’re from?

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

As Covid-19 first spread through Chicago, the residents of Little Village faced another imminent crisis — the hastily-approved demolition of an old coal-fired power plant that left the neighborhood shrouded in dust during a pandemic lock-down. This week, reporter Jenny Casas tells the story of Kim Wasserman's decades-long fight for environmental justice in Little Village and the lessons it offers for protest movements sweeping the country.

You can read the full history of how Chicago's coal power plants were closed in Kari Lydersen’s book, "Closing the Cloud Factories: Lessons from the fight to shut down Chicago’s coal plants" as well as view the most recent coverage of the fallout from the implosion via Mauricio Peña on Block Club Chicago here.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

Juneteenth marks a triumphant moment for not just Black Americans, but all people who have sought liberation globally. On June 19th, Kai Wright hosted a special episode of “The Brian Lehrer Show” with a series of conversations about the history of the national holiday, classical music and Black politics - then and now. Guests include WQXR's Terrance McKnight, historian Dr. Daina Ramey Berry and calls from listeners about their family histories of emancipation.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

After months of fear and mourning amid a global pandemic, we’re now in the streets. This week, we talk about catharsis and the ways we gather to fight, to grieve and to show up for each other. We hear from Shanika Hart, First Lady of The Gathering Harlem, on being a Black mom, fighting for Black lives. And we learn about the life of beloved Brooklynite Lloyd Porter, who died of Covid-19, and the unique way his community gathered to mourn him.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

As the nation faces the dual brunts of the pandemic and the on-going brutality against black bodies, people more than ever are finding ways to “do the work” in their communities. This week our reporter Jenny Casas takes us to a neighborhood in Chicago where Mexican residents are confronting anti-black violence. Anjali Kamat reports a dispatch from her neighborhood in New York, one of the American epicenters of Covid-19 cases, Jackson Heights. 

Read more coverage of what happened in Chicago from the South Side Weekly.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.

It’s hard enough when there’s no pandemic to keep mentally ill inmates from falling through the holes in a patchwork system. Now it’s harder than ever. A huge number of people who are locked up in this country are mentally ill or addicted to drugs or both. This episode, we go to Cleveland, Ohio to follow a psychiatrist and a social worker as they, first, try to find and, then, wrap their arms around recently released inmates, all while social distancing.

Tell us what you think. We're @noteswithkai on Instagram and X (Twitter). Email us at [email protected]. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or record one here.

Notes from America airs live on Sundays at 6 p.m. ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts.