NPR

After we wrapped the shoot on this episode of Amplify, I called an Uber to take me from the Stony Island Arts Bank on Chicago's South Side back to my downtown hotel. The 30-minute ride along Lakeshore Drive was beautiful, with Lake Michigan shining a bright and hopeful blue. I started chatting with my driver, and it was one of those conversations between strangers that quickly goes deep. We talked […]

Kimberley Seals Allers, was inspired to start Irth because of stories she her from many mothers as well as her own experience of bias in the health care system during the delivery of her first child. Tom Mason/The Big Idea: Birth Without Bias Like any savvy mother-to-be, Queens, N.Y.-based journalist Kimberly Seals Allers made an informed decision when it came to selecting a hospital in which to give birth. She […]

Hughes Van Ellis, one of the last known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, has died at age 102. He's seen here smiling at a rally commemorating the 100th anniversary of the massacre in June 2021 in Tulsa, Okla. Brandon Bell/Getty Images He was one of the last known living survivors of one of the worst events in U.S. history: the Tulsa Race Massacre, when mobs of white […]

Roy Wood Jr. during election coverage on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah in 2016. Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Comedy Central Comic Roy Wood Jr. says he will not return to his position as a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show when the show resumes new episodes later this month, ending a job he first started eight years ago. The reason: Since he hasn't been offered the job as […]

The artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons is one of this year's MacArthur fellows. Her sculptures, paintings, installations and photography are displayed in over 30 museums around the globe. When she got news of the s0-called "genius grant," she says, " I was running room to room in the house, feeling a sense of terror and elation." MacArthur Foundation "When I left the town of La Vega to go to art school […]

Edward Blum, a longtime opponent of affirmative action and founder of the American Alliance for Equal Rights, at the U.S. Supreme Court last year. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled in Blum's favor against a venture capital fund that awards grants to Black female entrepreneurs. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images A legal battle between a program that awards grants to female entrepreneurs of color and a conservative nonprofit organization […]

Over the past few years, it seems that rarely a week has gone by without a news story chronicling the renewed debate about whose history matters and how — or whether — it can be taught. There have been countless specious claims about Critical Race Theory (a graduate-level framework that examines racial inequality) being taught in elementary schools. Every state but six (so far) has seen proposals to restrict the […]

Updated September 23, 2023 at 2:42 PM ET Darryl George, a 17-year-old junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, has been suspended for not cutting his hair. Michael Wyke/AP A Black high school student in Texas was suspended for more than two weeks for wearing a natural hairstyle that school officials say violated the district's dress code. Now, he and his mother are suing Texas Gov. Greg […]