Tulsa Race Riots of 1921

Guest: Scott Ellsworth, Lecturer, Afro-American and African Studies, University of Michigan, and author, "The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice" (forthcoming)

100 years ago, one of the most prosperous African-American communities in the United States flourished in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a neighborhood known as “Black Wall Street.” Ninety-nine years ago that community was destroyed in 48 hours. How a likely innocent collision in an elevator exploded into the worst racial violence in US History. And why neither the white or black community wanted to talk about it afterwards. 

Martin Luther King and Human Rights

Guest: Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor, American History, and Director, Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University

Martin Luther King, Jr., was the most influential American civil rights leader of the 20th century. We dive into his early years before he became a minister or activist. Professor Carson calls him "almost an accidental civil rights leader," but he was always bound to help the poor. 

The Lost Story of an Enslaved Woman Who Sued for Restitution, and Won

Guest: W. Caleb McDaniel, Associate Professor, History, Rice University, and author, “Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America”

Henrietta Wood was the recipient of the largest known sum ever granted by a U.S. court in restitution for slavery, successfully suing Zebulon Ward, the man who had enslaved her, for $2,500. Her story was lost in history until a historian uncovered two interviews with her.