Under-Told: Verbatim

Thetis White’s class is diverse—filled with students from different races and backgrounds, who are all taught by a Black man. That’s not uncommon at Monroe Elementary in Brooklyn Park, a diverse suburb of Minneapolis, but it is rare in Minnesota as a whole, where fewer than one percent of teachers are Black men.  Experts say the low number of teachers of color contributes to wide educational disparities in Minnesota. The state has historically ranked near the top in test scores and graduation rates. But those numbers mask wide differences between white and, in particular, Black students.This year, about 52 percent of white students met state standards for math, compared to 18 percent of Black students. And, on reading, 60 percent of white students were proficient, double the percentage of Black students.

Buying a home is a rite of passage, a life-changing step—but in the Twin Cities especially, this crucial key to accumulating and passing down wealth is much harder to come by if you are Black. Just 25 percent of Black residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul own their homes. That’s far below the national average, especially considering the Twin Cities are widely regarded as one of the country’s most affordable metros. As far as white residents here, though, 75 percent are homeowners. This episode of Under-Told: Verbatim includes interviews with new homeowners Tim and Melva Luckett, aspiring homeowner Lilricka Barber, Minnesota Housing Commissioner Jennifer Ho and historian Kirsten Delegard, who leads the Mapping Prejudice Project.

Especially in the United States, many think of racism as a black and white issue—but less talked about is colorism, the preference for lighter skin within communities of color. Safiya Mohamed is a Somali American journalism student at the University of St. Thomas, where our Under-Told Stories Project offices are based. Our PBS NewsHour report on the global desire for lighter skin and the potentially toxic steps some will take to get it covered the impact of Amira Adawe’s activism on the cosmetics industry through her organization, Beautywell—but this episode of Under-Told Verbatim explores the impact of Beautywell’s Young Women’s Wellness and Leadership Initiative, in which Safiya Mohamed participated.

Minnesotans, now more than ever, are waking up to the realities of racial inequity in their communities. In St. Paul, activists with ReConnect Rondo have a new suggestion: they want to build a land bridge over Interstate 94 to rejoin the old Rondo neighborhood, which was destroyed decades ago by the construction of the freeway. In this episode, our intern Emily Haugen interviewed those leading the charge, plus city and state officials working to right past wrongs.

It’s April  2021—the COVID-19 pandemic has been omnipresent for more than a year, and vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are rolling out across the United States. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve reported on essential workers, focusing especially on some of the most overlooked employees - in the U.S. some 50,000 meatpackers have had COVID-19 and about 250 lost their lives. This episode features an interview with University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm about the vaccine rollout for meatpacking workers in rural areas like Worthington, Minnesota.

Lisa Clemons is a former Minneapolis police officer who founded a non-profit called A Mother’s Love—a brigade of people in bright pink t-shirts trying to bring back the metaphorical village they say it takes to raise a child. Clemons dreamed of being a cop since she was young, but left the department 20 years ago for a broader advocacy. Our correspondent, Fred de Sam Lazaro, spent a cold November day with her as Clemons and her team passed out COVID kits of masks and toiletries, purchased hams or turkeys and organized an upcoming Christmas toy drive. 

Charging Buffalo is the first butchering facility on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota - the economic development alone is welcome in one of the poorest communities in the United States, but a place that treats the sacred animal with honor and respect means something more. Bamm Brewer is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He runs the meat house, plus his own ranch and buffalo herd. Our correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro spoke to him in October about Lakota life, land rights and bringing back the buffalo.

In the Bangkok restaurant Cabbages and Condoms, rubbers are everywhere: on sculptures, lanterns, even a condom Santa Claus at Christmastime.  The place has become an icon for what’s widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful family planning programs.  Bringing a little humor to a taboo-laden topic is the trademark of Mechai Viravaidya—or as he’s known in his native Thailand: the Condom King. No surprise, then, that in Thailand condoms are commonly called Mechais. He started out working to stabilize a growing population and reduce  poverty through family planning—a key factor in Thailand's growth into a middle income nation. When HIV/AIDS hit,  a similar condom-based campaign became useful once more—one that’s widely credited with a dramatic drop in the number of HIV infections, from about 140,000 a year in 1990, to about 30,000 cases a year a decade later.  Our correspondent, Fred de Sam Lazaro, has interviewed Mechai many times—most recently in April 2020 by video call to see how the school Mechai founded is faring during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode of Under-Told: Verbatim, we’ve collected some of our favorite chats with Mechai over the years so you can hear how he’s worked with bureaucrats, religious leaders, the media and directly with communities as an activist, while founding schools and businesses to sustain his mission. 

After police killed George Floyd on May 25, Minneapolis and St. Paul saw weeks of protests that spread across the world. Never before has such a clear demand emerged from the demonstrations: defund the police. The Minneapolis City council unanimously advanced a proposal at the end of June to create a new Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention—their next goal was to amend the city charter, which mandates a police department with a certain number of officers. The council hoped to put that question before voters, but the Minneapolis Charter Commission, court appointed and not elected, had the ultimate say and voted effectively to keep the issue off the November ballot. That decision sat well with mayor Jacob Frey,  who’s opposed the defunding campaign. Amid the debate, Minneapolis has seen a spike in violent crime and a record number of complaints against the department since the city erupted in protests after Floyd’s killing. Throughout the summer, we’ve followed the defund the police debate. To find out what a police-free future might look like, our correspondent, Fred de Sam Lazaro, has talked with city leaders and community members, like Tyrone Hartwell of the Minnesota Freedom Fighters and Lisa Clemons of A Mother's Love.

Our team actually lives in St. Paul and Minneapolis...which, on a fateful day in late May, became the epicenter of a protest movement that’s swept the world since: the death of George Floyd. We’ve been on the frontlines of this story for the PBS NewsHour.  Alongside NewsHour producers Mike Fritz and Sam Lane, we produced an in-depth piece on inequality in the Twin Cities, how ‘Minnesota Nice’ only applies if you’re white. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch the full story at undertoldstories.org. In this episode, we have a chance to expand conversations our correspondent, Fred de Sam Lazaro, had with community members after police killed Floyd and protestors burned the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct.