For this encore episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay hears about the challenges to America’s incarcerated population as they re-enter society. At least 95% of all state prisoners are released after serving their sentence, more than 600,000 people each year. The re-entry process requires essential tasks; accessing identification materials, birth certificates and sometimes social security materials. How well do programs designed to help formerly incarcerated people succeed? Some people suggest recognizing past traumas may be a powerful step to help people make a new life after they serve their time. This encore episode of Us & Them received a best documentary award from the Public Media Journalists Association in 2023 and was acknowledged with a public service through journalism award from Virginia’s AP broadcasters.  

In this encore episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay shares the story of a simple song written more than 250 years ago that now has a profound and universal legacy. John Newton wrote the hymn Amazing Grace to connect with Christians and over decades it’s been sung to a number of melodies. However, addition to its religious origins, it is now a popular folk song and an anthem for civil rights which transcends divisions and speaks to people across time and faiths about shared pain, hope and forgiveness. Newton’s creation may have been inspired by his past as a slave and captain of a slave ship. But today, Amazing Grace is a comforting song of redemption that helps many recover from dark times and see ahead to the light. 

Many people know Thurgood Marshall as the first African American U.S. Supreme Court justice, however, first he had a long and distinguished career with the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. On this episode of Us & Them, Trey Kay hosts a community conversation highlighting Thurgood Marshall’s legacy and sharing excerpts from a new Maryland Public Television documentary “Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect.” Marshall was the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education case which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. His work used the law as a tool for social change while dismantling institutional racism and inspiring social reforms. 

As we count down to the end of 2025, Us & Them host Trey Kay looks back at the year’s whirlwind of actions and reactions. Each week presented fresh moves in the agenda President Donald Trump outlined during his campaign. First it was a reshaping of the federal government from Elon Musk’s efficiency department, which slashed budgets and agencies and workers. At the same time, additional resources for the Department of Homeland Security means a significant increase in the number of immigration arrests and detentions by federal agents. The use of National Guard troops in U.S. cities tests the limits of the president’s authority while those in the Mountain State mourn the death of a soldier shot in the nation’s capitol. We look at how one-time culture war talking points are reengineering America's defining institutions. 

We’re an aging nation. Today 16% of Americans are over 65. In the next few decades that will double as the youngest Baby Boomers move into old age. But in West Virginia, that future is now. It’s the third oldest state in the nation and more than 20% of its residents are over 65. At the same time, West Virginia’s birth rate is low because young people are leaving. That generational imbalance will increase in coming years. The numbers show a growing crisis. Senior care has shifted from a nursing home model to one focused on aging in place. The cost of care is lower the longer people stay in their homes. That’s led to an explosion in home-based support and care services. But now, those companies can’t find the workers they need to provide services for the growing elderly population. 

America’s crime rates have prompted President Donald Trump to deploy federal agents and National Guard troops in a handful of major cities. On this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay looks at what data and statistics can really tell us about the level of violence in our country. Crime continues to be one of the defining issues for the Trump administration, and the president refers to “out of control” crime numbers to deploy soldiers on city streets and support his actions while using federal agents to sweep up undocumented immigrants. However crime rates are inconsistently reported and the analysis is challenging. The administration points to its own actions as a reason for a recent drop in crime, but FBI data show major crime categories have been on the decline for the past two years. In fact a recent poll suggests Americans are less anxious about street crime and more fearful of online scams and school shootings. 

America’s housing shortage continues to put affordable homes out of reach for people across the country — from small towns to big cities. While West Virginia has the nation’s highest level of homeownership overall, many residents still struggle to find something that works for their budget. In fact, nearly 140,000 West Virginians spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay looks at the squeeze in two places—Philadelphia and southern West Virginia—finding that while inventory has improved, costs remain well above pre-pandemic levels and even manufactured homes, once an entry point for many, are slipping out of reach.

This episode first aired in 2023, focusing on the strategies to motivate young voters and we’re sharing it again in the wake of the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA.  Kirk, a renowned conservative youth organizer, was shot and killed during a campus event at Utah Valley University. Nothing divides Americans like politics — but young voters continue to matter. Host Trey Kay talks with journalist Kyle Spencer, whose book Raising Them Right traces how conservative organizers spent years building a youth movement on campuses. Spencer says the growth was strategic and well funded. Money can organize power, she notes, though it doesn’t force a single, uniform ideology on young people. Kay also talks with Abby Kiesa of Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), who explains how youth participation has shifted in the Trump era and why a deeper problem persists: the political system still struggles to turn young people’s  political interest into sustained turnout. Revisiting this Us & Them episode in the wake of Kirk’s death offers context for how campus-based organizing — and reactions to it — have shaped youth politics today.

As the United States prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, attention is focused on the relevance of the American Revolution to our country today. The new episode of Us & Them spotlights a recent community event at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va  with host Trey Kay and three top historians to talk about the realities of our revolutionary past. Ken Burns’ upcoming PBS series The American Revolution shines a light on the war that transformed 13 colonies into a nation. This timely episode of Us & Them revisits America’s origin story with fresh eyes, probing what we remember, what we forget, and why it matters now.

Just as America faces some of its most critical political divides, our criminal justice system suffers from a lack of public trust. How are these dual crises interwoven?  In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay talks with legal scholar David Sklansky, a Stanford professor who co-directs the school’s Criminal Justice Center. In his new book “Criminal Justice in Divided America,” Sklansky says reforming the nation’s justice system may be at the core of recovering our democracy.  In fact, he says there are clear approaches and solutions to help reform what’s broken and that even the basic concept of the jury trial can re-educate us in the skills and habits required to work across differences in a pluralistic democracy.  In the end, Sklansky says the criminal justice system is one of the few places where Americans of varying beliefs and persuasions engage with each other to make important decisions.